


I'd Take a Bullet Meant for Both of Us

by BrighteyedJill



Series: I'd Take a Bullet Meant for Both of Us [1]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: BDSM, Blackmail, Dubious Consent, Fisting, Humiliation, M/M, Mirror Universe, Multi, Public Sex, Rough Sex, Sensory Deprivation, Sex Toys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-21
Updated: 2011-02-23
Packaged: 2017-11-04 06:28:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/390801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrighteyedJill/pseuds/BrighteyedJill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When backed into a corner, McCoy had to make a deal with Christopher Pike, Commandant of Cadets at the Imperial Academy. If Kirk had been there, he might have been able to tell McCoy that was a mistake. Kirk, at least, had taken some tactics courses. McCoy must stumble through the consequences of his deal and strike a dangerous balance between the suspicions of two powerful men.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://jaune-chat.livejournal.com/profile)[**jaune_chat**](http://jaune-chat.livejournal.com/) for the constant encouragement, beta-work, and word-smithing, and thanks my whole f-list for listening to me flail.
> 
> **Warnings:** mirror!verse morals, consent issues (of the dub-con and coercion variety), uneven power dynamics, and various kinks, which are listed in the notes at the end in case you prefer your kink non-spoilery.

The disciplinary holding cells at the Imperial Academy had always reminded McCoy of the yawning maw of some alien beast poised to devour its prey. Even Kirk’s sunny smile couldn’t banish the oppressive menace exuded by the plain black walls and low ceilings.

“It’s the third time this semester,” McCoy muttered as he wrapped Kirk’s bruised ribs, a souvenir of the detention guards’ overenthusiastic restraining methods.

“Only three?” Kirk asked. “I can do better than that.”

“Well don’t.” McCoy would have liked to know for sure if the ribs were actually cracked, but the discipline board considered using med scanners on detainees a waste of Imperial resources. To get in even these rudimentary supplies, he’d had to threaten the door guard—McKenna—with some creative altering of ‘Fleet records; with a few clicks, he could make it look like the man was scheduled for chemical castration, for instance. That was usually a convincing argument for cooperation.

“It’s not like it looks bad on my record, Bones,” Kirk said. “The Empire isn’t about enforcing obedience, it’s about maintaining terror. They’re seeing what I can do.”

“Did you have to do it with Admiral Tanill’s daughter? In his office?”

“It’s not like she didn’t want it. I remember a lot of ‘oh yes, oh yes.’” Kirk looked thoughtful. “Of course, I guess there was crying afterwards when I tied her up and took those codes off her padd…”

“Great, so you fucked her and broke her heart.”

“Jealous?” Kirk grabbed McCoy’s wrist and squeezed hard. “Have I not been giving you enough attention?”

“Stop screwing around.” McCoy cinched the end of the bandage a little tighter than necessary.  
Kirk didn’t even wince, the bastard.

“I know what I’m doing, Bones. It’s fine.” Kirk pulled his uniform shirt back on.

“It’s not fine, Jim. They’re talking about a public whipping.”

A momentary dim in the wattage of his ever-present grin. “Bullshit.”

“I heard them.” McCoy threw his supplies back into the thin medical kit. “Tanill’s mad as hell.”

“It’ll be fine.”

“Not if you get expelled.”

“Tanill can’t expel me,” Kirk laughed.

“Sure.” McCoy looked quickly over his shoulder at the empty corridor behind the force shield. He didn’t see any listeners, but he didn’t know what recording devices they planted in these cells.

“He can’t.” Kirk grabbed McCoy’s chin to pull him back. “Bones, listen. This is just a power play thing. You can’t let them scare you.”

“You may not have the survival instincts God gave a mayfly, but--.”

“Bones, really. I’ve got this one.”

McCoy might have imagined it, but he thought he saw just the slightest shadow of brittle fear behind the devil-may-care grin. And the worst part was that here, under possible surveillance, Kirk would never say anything to give that possible weakness away. And if McCoy pressed further, he’d be in for a punishment of his own once Kirk was out of this. If Kirk got out of this. If Kirk didn’t…

“Bones, tell me you won’t do anything stupid.”

McCoy was under no illusions that his relatively easy life at the Imperial Academy had anything to do with his own merits. He was a damned good doctor and a valuable asset, yes, but without Kirk’s protection, he’d be prey to any number of more powerful predators, ones who might not share Kirk’s unconventional predilection of keeping McCoy unbroken. Kirk preferred his toys with spine and a little bite; few others held to that way of thinking.

“Bones,” Kirk said with a snap in his voice like the crack of the whip McCoy knew he knew how to yield. Kirk was still watching him, waiting for a response.

McCoy managed a crazed half-smile in return. The smile had been meant to re-assure, but Kirk looked disturbed. “Sure, nothing stupid,” McCoy said.

Kirk darted forward, moving too damn fast for a man with busted ribs, caught McCoy by the back of the neck, and pulled him into a sharp kiss.

“Doc. Time’s up.” McKenna appeared outside the cell. “Hey! This ain’t a conjugal visit.”

Kirk laughed and kneaded McCoy’s ass until McKenna punched in the access code, stomped in, and pulled McCoy back by his uniform jacket.

McCoy shrugged him off and spun to give McKenna a scathing glare.

“Get moving,” McKenna said. He didn’t touch McCoy again, but he quickly restored the force barrier to wall in Kirk, whose eyes had turned hard and cold when he’d touched McCoy.

“See you soon, Jim,” McCoy said, and headed out through the dark, looming hallway.

McKenna shadowed him out of the corridor of cells. When they were out of earshot, he said, “Hope your boyfriend likes taking it up the ass as much as you seem to.”

“Fuck off, McKenna.”

“Tanill may not be able to get him expelled, but he can give him a corrective tour of duty as an manual laborer on one of those mining scows, where ensigns are nothing but pretty bedwarmers. Well, pretty when they arrive.”

“He won’t do that to Kirk.”

“You remember what Archer did to that guy who beamed his beagle into oblivion?”

“Yeah.”

McKenna shrugged. “Compared to Tanill, Archer is a patient and merciful man.”  
\--

McCoy strode across the green expanse of campus like a man with a purpose. The problem was, he had no idea where to go or what to do. Kirk always had a plan, a whole web of plans, in fact, and right now none of those plans were doing McCoy any good whatsoever. He knew McKenna was prone to bragging. Unfortunately, McKenna usually had all-too-reliable gossip, thanks to his regular visit to his advisor’s bed.

That meant McCoy needed to call in some favors, or find someone with influence from whom to beg a favor. The problem was, here in the Imperial Academy, no one wanted to help Kirk. His peers saw him as a rival, his superiors as a future competitor. McCoy could think of only one man on the whole campus who might view Kirk as too valuable an asset to be wasted in a trumped-up prison sentence.

Captain Christopher Pike: the man who’d dragged both McCoy and Kirk out of their troubled lives and into Imperial service.

McCoy hated asking for a favor empty-handed, but he knew of no weak spots in Pike: no drugs he was addicted to, no vulnerable family, no enemies McCoy could touch. Kirk would know what to offer as a bargaining chip. Damn inconvenient he couldn’t be consulted. Still, with limited options, McCoy had to choose the best one available. He set off for the Command and Tactics building, holding fast to the hope that Kirk’s guardian devil would be in his office.  
\--

To McCoy’s surprise, the door to Pike’s office stood open, like a cave mouth beckoning unwary travelers. When McCoy edged into the open doorway, he saw Pike seated behind an old-fashioned wooden desk, rhythmically tapping a stylus against his padd.

McCoy had come this far. He took one step further. “Captain Pike.”

“Doctor McCoy,” Pike said, then looked up. His smirk warned McCoy want to make an excuse--any excuse--to leave, but when Pike beckoned with two fingers, McCoy stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.

Pike watched him expectantly, so McCoy said what he’d came here to say. “Cadet Kirk’s been taken in for a disciplinary hearing.”

“I know.”

“Of course, sir.” McCoy clenched his jaw, berating himself for not thinking this through more thoroughly. Of course Pike knew; the man had sources everywhere.

“Well, cadet?”

“Sir… The hearing…” McCoy stumbled. If Pike knew about the charges, he must know the punishment Kirk faced. He should have spent more time preparing an argument for helping Kirk.

“Did Kirk send you here?”

“No, sir.”

“You came here of your own volition, then.”

“Yes,” McCoy snapped, then added a begrudging, “Sir.”

“Should have known. If Kirk had sent you, he’d have made sure you knew what you were doing.” Pike stood up. He began to make a slow circuit of the room. “So, you do have a little initiative when you’re off Jimmy’s leash. Let’s see what you can do with it.”

When Pike moved out of his line of sight, McCoy felt his skin prickle in anticipation of pain. “Sir?”

“Tell me why you’re here,” Pike said from entirely too nearby.

“Will you talk to the discipline board? I’m sure if you put in a good word, they’d make sure his punishment is fair.”

“Fair. What would you say a fair punishment is for seducing a man’s daughter? You’re a father yourself, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” McCoy said, though hardly any sound came out.

“How would you feel if a cold-hearted bastard like Kirk charmed is way into your daughter’s heart—Johanna is her name, isn’t it? Her heart, and her skirt, and used her the way Kirk used that girl.”

“I--.” McCoy’s voice tangled up in his throat with a lump of rising terror. He shouldn’t have come here. He should have found another way to help Kirk. He hadn’t thought to bring danger on anyone else.

From behind him, Pike chuckled. “You’re lucky I don’t give even half a damn about your daughter, or Tanill’s either.”

McCoy shut his mouth. In truth, he wasn’t sure if Pike’s statement was a good sign or a bad sign.

“You know, doctor.” Pike strolled around to the front of his desk, and leaned against it, looking for all the world like a man participating in a casual chat, perhaps about academic matters. Maybe dispensing friendly advice on career goals. “You’re supposed to have a calming influence on Kirk.”

“I’m supposed—?” McCoy sputtered. Funny no one had mentioned that duty on his intake interview.

“Keep him from getting into trouble like this. He seemed to settle down for a while last semester when you first moved into his quarters.”

“I never moved--.” McCoy cursed his lack of strategy. Kirk would have known how to artfully dodge such accusations. “It’s against cadet regulations to--.”

“And now this semester, trouble again at every turn,” Pike continued smoothly, ignoring McCoy’s floundering. “What’s the matter, Doctor? The magic gone?”

“I can’t help his crazy risk-taking—“

“It’s in my best interest that Kirk have a steady bed-mate,” Pike went on. He may as well have been talking about changing the color of the damn curtains in his office. “Someone to keep his needs met, keep the edge off his temper. If he has someone sucking his dick regularly, he won’t go hunting as many influential people to piss off. You could be that for him.”

“I’m a doctor, not a whore,” McCoy snarled.

“You’re too smart a man to lie to yourself, McCoy.” Pike smiled, not unkindly. “Now tell me why you came here.”

McCoy swallowed hard to get rid of the tightness in his throat that worsened with Pike’s every word. “I came here to get Jim out of trouble.”

“You mean to keep yourself out of trouble.”

“Apparently the two are related.”

“Yes they are.” Pike spread his hands in a reasonable facsimile of generosity. “So you thought you’d ask me for help.”

“Yes.”

“And what were you prepared to give me?”

“You have an interest in Kirk, too,” McCoy temporized.

“We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you.” Pike watched him intently, unblinking. “What are you prepared to give me to intervene?”

McCoy felt a flush creeping up past the high collar of his uniform. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t considered this possibility when he’d come to Pike, but the talk of whores was making it all uncomfortably real. “Whatever you need.”

“Whatever I need.” Pike stalked closer. “What I _need_ , Doctor McCoy, is for Kirk to stop sticking his dick into every political minefield on this campus. So I’ll propose a deal.”

McCoy waited. His mind whirled through half a dozen possible deals Pike could propose: none of them sounded appealing.

“I’ll help you on this one, if you make sure that for the rest of his time on campus, Kirk doesn’t sleep with anyone except you.”

McCoy couldn’t stop himself. Hot hysteria bubbled up inside him, and he laughed in Pike’s face: one nervous outburst of sound. When he realized Pike was watching him, entirely straight-faced, he choked down his disbelief. “Sir. You want me to make Kirk, what, monogamous?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t.”

“Oh, you could,” Pike said slowly.

McCoy looked for a trace of mockery in Pike’s expression, but found none. Maybe Pike was the delusional kind of mad. “I know him,” McCoy began.

“You don’t know Jimmy as well as you think you do.” Pike smiled, and McCoy wondered what could possibly have made Pike come to that conclusion. “That’s my offer.”

“It’s impossible.”

“Then I can’t help you or Kirk.” Pike turned on his heel, strode back behind his desk, and sat. “You’re dismissed.”

“Sir—.” McCoy took a step forward.

“Yes, cadet?” Pike turned his attention to the padd he’d been working on before McCoy’s interruption.

McCoy made himself breathe. He couldn’t prevent Kirk from sleeping around campus. That would be like keeping a rabid bobcat on a leash, stopping a volcano from erupting, dragging a meteor off course. But if he didn’t try, and Kirk was shipped off for punishment, McCoy was sentencing himself to an unenviable fate: dead at best, at worst a piece of meat for predators to squabble over.

Pike sat placidly at his desk, running his stylus over a padd as if he hadn’t just proposed a task that McCoy was no more likely to accomplish than he was to pass the Kobayashi Maru. Pike looked as if he’d be content to sit there all afternoon, pointedly not watching McCoy squirm.

“Sir.” McCoy knew what he had to do. Pike was offering his help, and all he seemed to want in return was the impossible. “I can try.”

Pike’s gaze leapt to him, pinning him in place. “Do better.”

McCoy had gone too far to consider retreat now. Pike knew how desperate he was, and refusing would only give Pike the satisfaction of thinking him a coward. “I’ll do it.”

“There’s a good boy. Now give me your word.”

“I give you my word.” McCoy tore his eyes free of Pike’s and looked to the floor. He could feel the weight of his impossible promise smothering him already.

“Look at me.”

Pike’s words forced obedience out of McCoy. McCoy found himself locking eyes with the flinty-eyed man.

“Say, ‘Captain Pike, I swear Jim Kirk will spend every night from now until graduation in bed with me.’” Surely Pike could see the angry flush rising in McCoy’s skin at each word. “Say it.”

Though every inborn sense of preservation screamed at McCoy to stop, he said, “Captain Pike, I swear Jim Kirk will spend every night from now until graduation in bed with me.”

A sharp shine lit up Pike’s eyes. “Good. You can go.”

McCoy stayed where he was. “Kirk’s disciplinary hearing?”

“I’ll handle it. And McCoy? Jim is not to know about this conversation. If he finds out we’ve spoken, the deal is off. Now go back home. You’re going to be busy tonight.”  
\--

“See, Bones? I told you there was nothing to worry about!” Kirk said when he showed up at their dorm room that night, grinning like one of the large gods of the universe. He pinned McCoy to the mattress and took him hard, as a punishment for his lack of faith, but McCoy welcomed it. He’d known that keeping his promise this first night wouldn’t pose a problem. McCoy was worried about every night after this one, each one another battle, stretching in an inescapable road from now until graduation.  
\--

In a way, McCoy wished Pike had just asked for something simple: fucked him hard in payment for a favor and called it even, rather than sentence him to this ongoing hell. McCoy didn’t want to spend his free time plotting Kirk’s seduction. In the past, he had manufactured ways to avoid Kirk when he couldn’t bear his whims. Now even that freedom had been stripped away.

After just one day of sitting through his classes, the sense of confinement had begun to seep into McCoy’s skin, putting him in a foul mood. Back at his dorm room--Kirk’s dorm room--he’d nearly bitten Christine Chapel’s head off when she’d stopped by to borrow his notes from a Chemical Weapons lecture. McCoy threw himself down at his desk after she left, and was contemplating breaking out his bourbon stash when he heard the unmistakable voice of Jim Kirk in the hallway.

“Christine! What brings you to this side of campus?”

Her reply was too soft to hear, but it didn’t matter. Kirk was back, which meant McCoy had to find some way to keep him here tonight. And he probably had about fifteen seconds before Kirk walked in and announced his own plans--whatever those might be. Quickly, then.

McCoy rubbed the back of his hand against his mouth to bruise his lips. He scrubbed a hand through his hair to muss it as he made a quick circuit of the room. He was back at his desk before Kirk began entering the door code.

When Kirk plodded in, smelling of a hard sweat and toting his workout bag, he immediately narrowed his eyes at McCoy. “Where have you been?”

“Here.”

Kirk’s eyes darted around the room, picking up clues: the sheets McCoy had rumpled, the stack of books he’d knocked over, and the significantly depleted bottle of lube open on the nightstand. He frowned. “Doing what?”

“Studying. I have a xeno diseases practical tomorrow.”

“Studying”

“Yes.” McCoy knew the danger of feeding into Kirk’s paranoia. When Kirk felt threatened, he turned readily to violence, and McCoy would regret allowing Chapel to face Kirk’s wrath. But if McCoy could push him just far enough, he could gain Kirk’s undivided attention, for a while at least.

“You’re done studying,” Kirk said.

McCoy spent the rest of the night being reminded just how exhausting Kirk’s undivided attention could be.  
\--

McCoy rested his head against the shower wall as the hot water pounded his sore muscles. He’d left Kirk snoring into the pillows in the other room, but he could never be sure how long such a comparatively innocent state would last. He really shouldn’t dawdle, but the heat and the opportunity to be still and brain-dead for a few minutes kept him indulging longer than he should.

He hadn’t been able to calculate the figure with any accuracy, but McCoy estimated he’d slept less than seven hours in the past three days. He’d survived med school under similar conditions, but he’d been younger, then. Besides, in med school his sleepless nights had been spent studying, not being pounded into the mattress by his seemingly-tireless roommate. McCoy hadn’t realized exactly how strong Kirk’s sex drive was until he tried to get it focused exclusively on him.

At last McCoy pushed himself upright, shut off the shower, and tried to shake off his exhaustion along with the water. He listened, but heard no sound—not even snoring—coming from the bedroom. He snatched a towel from the rack, tied it hastily around his waist, and charged out of the bathroom.

Kirk sat propped up against the headboard with his legs slightly spread, holding a padd in his left hand and stroking his half-hard cock with his right hand.

“A little early for porn,” McCoy muttered. He retreated back into the bathroom, feeling a bit foolish at his panic, but not so foolish as to leave Kirk entirely unattended.

“Not porn,” Kirk called distractedly. “Just going over some research. Come suck my cock.”

“Just got out of the shower,” McCoy called back. He grabbed the last remaining towel off the rack and began rubbing himself dry. Because he was going to get dressed and go to class. Any minute now.

“Took long enough,” Kirk replied. “Come on!”

McCoy cinched the towel more tightly around his waist and strode out into the bedroom. Kirk set the padd aside, but didn’t stop touching himself as McCoy dug through his dresser for some clean clothes.

“Stalling isn’t actually endearing, you know.”

McCoy seized a pair of clean-enough briefs from the drawer and pulled them on. “Not stalling. I have class.”

The bed creaked, and McCoy whirled around to see what fresh madness Kirk was up to, but he’d only shifted to sit on the foot of the bed. He cocked his head at McCoy, examining him with the same kind of intensity he’d just been devoting to his studies. “You look like hell, Bones. Blow off your classes today.”

“So I can blow you instead? No, Jim.” Refusal was one of McCoy’s most effective tools for dealing with Kirk. Or it _had_ been, pre-promise. Kirk enjoyed a challenge, so McCoy could hold onto some shred of dignity by back-talking Kirk at every turn. Now, though, McCoy found himself teetering on the dangerous edge of a bluff. He dragged a pair of uniform pants out of the dresser, saw that they were Kirk’s, tossed them aside in disgust, and kept looking.

“Come on. You know you’d rather be playing with me than terrorizing your lab mates.”

McCoy finally found a clean uniform folded in the back of the drawer, and picked it up. If he didn’t give Kirk something, he’d take his pleasure elsewhere: that McCoy knew from experience. However, refusal might work to McCoy’s advantage, if he could only play it right. “No, Jim. I’ve got priorities.”

“Assisting Pruri in terrorizing first-year cadets is your priority?”

“It is today.”

“I can think of something more fun.” He leaned forward, eager as a puppy wagging its tail.

In moments like this, McCoy felt almost as if he and Kirk were something less complicated. Lovers, maybe. Partners who could taunt each other, and flirt outrageously and play hard to get for the fun of it. McCoy started to smile, but wiped it away with the back of his hand. “We have different ideas of fun,” he said.

“Come on, you’re too tired to be useful in the lab, anyway.”

“Then I’m definitely too tired for your bullshit.”

“If you stay here, you can lay down the whole time.”

McCoy pretended to consider the offer, but he already knew he’d give in. He couldn’t afford to let Kirk find satisfaction somewhere else. On the other hand, McCoy didn’t want to make it too easy for Kirk. Kirk didn’t like easy. McCoy said, “I have a shift at the hospital at three.”

Kirk glanced at the chrono, as if calculating. “I can have you put together and cleaned up by then.”

That didn’t sound promising. McCoy’s scowl deepened.

Kirk watched him for a moment, his tactician’s brain clearly mulling over before the possibilities, then said, “I’ll let us sleep for an hour before we start.”

“Fine.”  
\--

No mercy of Kirk’s came without its price, so McCoy should have expected to wake up naked with his limbs tied to the bed. McCoy struggled slowly up out of his torpor. Kirk must have been awake for some time—or perhaps he’d never actually fallen asleep, because he sat on the edge of the bed, flipping his father’s knife open and closed with impatient flicks of his wrist.

“Why d’you have ‘at?” McCoy slurred as he tried to drag himself into wakefulness.

“It’s sharp,” Kirk answered. He dropped the blade flat against McCoy’s belly and dragged it across with only enough force to scratch the skin.

That catapulted McCoy into full alertness. “No cutting. You promised no cutting,” McCoy said quickly. He didn’t like to remember what he’d done to extract that promise, but the memory flared anyway, hot and uneasy. He pushed it down ruthlessly. “Jim.”

“I know. Calm down.” Kirk ran his fingers down the path of the blade to soothe the scratch. “Anyway, I thought you were just going to lie there.”

McCoy forced himself to lie back down. He trusted Kirk, after a fashion. After more than a year together, the two of them knew the steps to this merry dance: Kirk pressed McCoy for more than he wanted to give, McCoy resisted, and Kirk got his way eventually. This deal with Pike upset their delicate balance: McCoy dared not push Kirk the way he had been. That didn’t mean he had no sense of self-preservation, however. “Fine. I’ll just lie here, then.”

Kirk flipped the knife closed and slid it onto the bedside table. “That sounds like a challenge, Bones.”

McCoy just raised an eyebrow in response. In the end, he did a great deal more than just lying there.  
\--

McCoy had been busy stitching together a victim of the disciplinary committee all afternoon, so the first he heard of the gossip was a whispered conversation at the nurse’s station in the hallway outside the surgery. The other nurses shut up as soon as they saw him coming, but Chapel waved him down. “Doctor. Have you heard?” She scrolled through something on her padd and held it up to show him.

McCoy squinted at the display: pilot rankings. At the top, where Kirk’s name should be, was the name Hikaru Sulu.

McCoy glanced at the circle of nurses surrounding him: all tense as if waiting for an outburst. Instead, he asked, “What happened?”

“Some tactics cadet was messing around with the nav settings in one of the hangers,” Chapel said. “It caused some massive glitch. They ended up grounding a whole squad of shuttles and cancelling a training flight.”

“And?” McCoy prompted.

Chapel’s confidence must have made the rest bold, because a nurse McCoy didn’t recognize piped up with, “One section of the advanced flight class didn’t get to go up at all, so they missed a chance to earn credit towards the standings.”

“I heard that cadet did it on purpose, to help his friend rise in the rankings,” another nurse said, leaning forward to thwart the prying ears of the rest of the hospital. “Pretty smart plan.”

“Well he’s an idiot if he wants to earn Kirk’s wrath,” said a third. Her eyes darted to McCoy. “No offense.”

“None taken.” McCoy said. He nodded to Chapel. “Thanks.” He strode off to change, leaving Chapel’s friends to make what gossip they would out of his reactions.

Instead of playing least-in-sight as he usually did when Kirk’s mood turned dark, McCoy kept close tabs on Kirk’s whereabouts through listening to rumor-mill grist about Kirk’s revenge machinations. When he felt the stares of curious cadets wondering and whispering about how Kirk’s man would respond to the scandal, he would turn and bestow a grim smile and the craziest eyes he could muster, which were very crazy indeed. Let them read what they wanted into _that_.

Just after sunset, McCoy wandered into his and Kirk’s room with a fresh bottle of whisky, pretending he didn’t know he was walking into a trap. Later, clinging to the mattress and panting with Kirk’s hand inside him, he told himself that this was his choice: one he preferred to being passed around by the senior command-track cadets. He even believed it, in moments when the pain wasn’t shouting down conscious thought.

McCoy caught sight of the chrono at oh three hundred, when Kirk had finally draped himself over McCoy and fallen into an exhausted sleep. The position should have been uncomfortable, but Kirk’s heavy weight pressed a sense of satisfaction into McCoy: he’d read Kirk well enough to know what he needed, and he’d successfully fulfilled his obligation for another day. For now, his promise to Pike could stay on the very short list of oaths McCoy hadn’t violated.  
\--

McCoy ducked into the med cadets’ locker room and pulled up his shirt to rub cream on the welt marks Kirk had given him specific orders not to remove. McCoy had put up only a token resistance that morning when Kirk had brought out the cane. Usually he’d try anything short of begging—McCoy did _not_ beg—to re-direct Kirk’s interest at such times, but when the blows fell, McCoy couldn’t help his relief at being the one Kirk was hitting. In light of Pike’s deal, it beat standing grumpily in a corner waiting to heal a temporary playmate before he, she, or it was unceremoniously evicted. A chiming from his padd interrupted his ministrations.

_I want to see my handiwork again,_ Kirk’s message read. _Come to the science library on your lunch. Bring your cocksucking lips._

Normally McCoy might have ignored such a command, hoping Kirk would get bored and find someone else to stroke his ego. This time, McCoy only saw the opportunity to give Kirk something to do tonight. He snatched the dermal regenerator out of his bag and began to erase the welts.  
\--

“There is absolutely no physical chance of my getting it up again for at least twelve hours,” McCoy panted.

“You’re no fun, old man.” Kirk’s smirk might have meant he was secretly pleased. “Well, you rest. Bars should be closing down in a few. I’m sure I can pick up something to keep me occupied.”

“Wait.” Even in his weakened state, the force of McCoy’s call made Kirk’s pause. “My bag. Bring me my bag.”

“Bones,” Kirk said warningly. “I thought you learned your lesson about messing with my work.”

“My bag, damnit.”

Kirk’s expression turned thoughtful. He prowled over to the doorway, grabbed McCoy’s bag, and tossed it onto the bed.

McCoy summoned his strength to sit up and told his aching muscles to quit their whining. He yanked open the bag and pressed a hidden latch to open the compartment of weaponized substances. He pulled out a vial of brilliant blue liquid, as startlingly cerulean as Kirk’s eyes. “Old, am I?” He loaded a half dose into his hypospray, thought better of it, then loaded the whole dose.

Kirk drifted closer. “What the hell is that?”

McCoy pressed the hypo against his neck and deployed it. He felt the rush almost immediately as the compound hit his bloodstream, leaving behind warmth and a painfully intense energy. He flopped back against the mattress, gasping for air.

“Bones! What--?” Kirk rushed to his side and snatched the hypospray out of his loose grip. “What the hell are you doing?”

McCoy’s buzz settled into a pleasant glow that pooled in his groin. He sat up. When he saw Kirk standing by the bedside, he may have licked his lips.

Kirk’s expression breezed past alarm and went right to excitement. “Bones, did you just give yourself sex pollen?”

“Your voice sounds dirty.”

That little stunt kept Kirk occupied for three days.  
\--

McCoy thought perhaps Kirk was getting suspicious. One morning, as Kirk was enjoying a leisurely blow job, he said, “I haven’t seen Gaila in weeks.”

McCoy wrapped his hand around the base of Kirk’s dick and squeezed. “Mind your manners,” he snapped, “Or get someone else to do this.”

“I might. Hand me my padd.”

“No.”

Kirk looked at McCoy in the penetrating way that meant he was working through a problem: fitting evidence to possible causes and extrapolating favorable outcomes.

McCoy mustered a considerable amount of will to prevent himself from fidgeting under Kirk’s scrutiny. He’d never been clear on what, exactly, Kirk seemed to find so goddamn fascinating that required staring at him all the time.

“Padd,” Kirk said again.

McCoy tightened his grip on Kirk’s erection. “No.”

Kirk’s speculative gaze brightened into a smile. “Possessive all of a sudden?”

McCoy bared his teeth and fitted them gently over Kirk’s cockhead.

“Alright.” Kirk nodded as if he’d discovered something. With a generous wave, he said, “Show me what you’ve got. You’ve got five minutes to get me off, or I’m going to find a better offer.”

McCoy took ten minutes, but afterwards, Kirk didn’t complain.  
\--

Last month, McCoy would have made an excuse--taken extra shifts at the morgue, purposely injected himself with Bolian Influenza, anything--to avoid a night out with Kirk and his command-track classmates celebrating the end of their Techniques of Conquest practical. Today, he merely gifted Kirk with a toothy snarl when informed that his presence would be required, and left it at that.

The scene at the bar was a tangled mess of predatory instincts, machismo, and lust. McCoy spent most of the evening planted at the bar, watching Kirk hold court. He left for three minutes to hit the head, and when he returned, Kirk had one of his classmates pressed up against the bar, his hands tucked in the back pockets of the man’s uniform, pressing their pelvises together.

Pulse quickening, McCoy shoved his way to the bar. He made certain to jostle the interloper when he raised an arm to hail the bartender. “Bourbon, straight,” he told the woman. He turned to see Kirk and his grope-ee looking at him: Kirk with amusement, the other man with irritation.

“Having fun, Bones?” Kirk drawled.

“I can smell the sex on you across the damn room.”

“That’s the point,” Deserves-a-Hypospray-of-Poison sneered, and rolled his body against Kirk’s.

Kirk held the man tighter against him, but he kept looking at McCoy. “Maybe you’re just specially attuned to my pheromones.”

“Pheromones my ass,” Kirk’s playmate muttered. He squirmed out of Kirk’s grip to retrieve his drink from the bar.

McCoy silently congratulated himself on judicious application of his mighty glare. He took his drink from the bartender, raised it vaguely toward Jim, and slugged it back. “Let’s go Jim.”

“No. I’m not ready to leave.”

“Fine. Drink alone, then,” McCoy said, but he didn’t go for the door. Threatening to leave was one thing. Walking out of here now would essentially mean giving up on Pike’s deal.

Kirk scanned the place, including his comrades, who had started to take an interest in the conversation. “If you’re so eager, we’ll do it here.”

“Do you have any idea how filthy this place is?” McCoy tried to laugh it off, but his voice sounded brittle, even in his own ears.

“Then go home. I’m sure I can find someone else who’s game.”

A test. McCoy saw it in Kirk’s eyes. He was testing some theory about McCoy’s odd behavior, seeing if the pattern would hold.

“Come back with me.” It was the wrong move. McCoy knew it as soon as he saw Kirk’s eyes harden. McCoy should have known better than to tell Kirk to do anything, especially in front of witnesses, and if he’d been at the top of his game, he would never have made such an amateur mistake. He tried to backpedal. “I’ve got a bottle of Kentucky bourbon I’ve been saving. Better than this swill.”

“I’ve been spending too much time in the dorms. We’re staying out tonight.”

McCoy didn’t bother to ask whether he was included in that we. He’d stay wherever Kirk was. At least Kirk let him knock back the rest of his drink before hauling him out to the dance floor to the accompanying leers and catcalls of Kirk’s classmates. McCoy was debating whether to protest that he couldn’t dance, or simply demonstrate, when Kirk pulled him through the last of the gyrating crowd and shoved him into the shadows against the wall. McCoy huffed as the impact knocked the air out of him.

Kirk pressed the length of his body up against McCoy, pinning him to the wall. “You haven’t been helping me celebrate. It’s like you’re not even happy that I’ve mastered the techniques of conquest.”

“What do you want, a card?” McCoy snarled. If he put up enough bluster, perhaps he could drag Kirk off what seemed to be an entirely terrible trajectory.

“A present.” Kirk ground up against McCoy, invading any personal space he might have tried to claim. “You, on your knees.”

“Not here, Jim.”

“Right here. Get on your knees.”

“Not in public.”

“This isn’t a negotiation. Knees, Bones. Now.”

“Outside, at least. The alley.”

“I won’t say it again.”

“Jim--.”

Kirk pulled away and turned his back. In another moment, he’d disappear into the crowd. McCoy’s hand darted out and caught Kirk’s shirt. Kirk turned back. He waited. McCoy kept his eyes on Kirk and nowhere else. He ignored the press of bodies around them, the bass thump of the music that rattled through his rib cage, the smell of sweat and lust rolling off the dance floor in pulsing waves. He only saw Kirk’s blue, hard eyes, with no trace of a bluff in sight.

McCoy slid to his knees.

He didn’t have the control to do anything more, but that didn’t seem to be a problem. With a harsh, “Fuck,” Kirk unzipped his pants, grabbed a fistful of McCoy’s hair, and shoved his already hard cock past McCoy’s parted lips. McCoy only had to concentrate on catching a breath here and there as Kirk used him.

His own dick strained against his pants. Kirk’s hands on him—hell, his mere presence—stoked McCoy’s arousal in a response so strongly ingrained that even these circumstances couldn’t dampen it. Kirk braced his free hand on the wall behind McCoy’s head and fucked his mouth faster. McCoy closed his eyes. He concentrated on the familiar taste of Kirk’s skin sliding across his tongue and the tug of Kirk’s hand in his hair. Those comforting sensations helped his focus, but his body’s stubborn arousal refused to let him drift away.

“That’s it, Bones. Now look at me.”

McCoy forced his eyes open and tried to focus on Kirk to the exclusion of all else: no flashing lights in his sight, no undulating bodies, no bright patches of color and dark pools of shadow.

“Yes.” Kirk tightened his grip on McCoy’s hair and pushed his head back. McCoy’s eyes fell closed again as Kirk shot stripes of come across his face, hot and sticky against his lips, his cheek, dripping off his chin. For a moment they stayed frozen like that, a filthy tableaux in the rush of the party around them.

Then Kirk’s slack look of pleasure morphed and hardened into a satisfied smile. Kirk zipped himself up and tousled McCoy’s hair. “Stay.” He turned, threaded his way through the crowd, and was lost to McCoy’s sight in moments.

McCoy sat where Kirk had put him, statue-still in his place, with the warm remnants of Kirk’s issue drying on his face. The music and noise of the club faded back into focus, and though he knew logically that it all was simply continuing at the same level, the whole scene suddenly seemed too bright and too loud.

He stayed where he was for almost a minute, staring sightlessly into the writhing mass of revelers and gasping in air as if he could smother the rapidly expanding panic welling inside him. His body told him in no uncertain terms that what he’d swallowed was coming back up. McCoy staggered to his feet, shoved rudely through the crowd, and threw himself at the emergency exit. Even the humid San Francisco night air was a balm after the too-close atmosphere of the club. He braced himself against the wall of the building while his stomach emptied itself violently.

Too much, too far. He was losing it: losing Kirk, losing his gamble against Pike, losing everything he’d worked for or wanted. The only damn thing that mattered anymore was spinning out of his reach. He’d spent years dancing around Kirk’s harsher orders, resisting or avoiding what he couldn’t bring himself to do. In a matter of weeks, Pike had him tearing down every barrier he’d put up against Kirk’s total invasion of him. At this rate, McCoy would have nothing left worth defending, and then Kirk, having taken everything he wanted, would leave him. The thought sent McCoy slumping forward against the wall, unable to stand.

McCoy felt hands touch his shoulders and jerked away. He spun clumsily and tried to bring his hands up into some semblance of a defensive pose. He was going to have a hell of a time fighting if the world kept tilting and swimming the way it was now.

“Hey, Bones. Just breathe. You’re okay. Breathe.” The hands were now held up in front of McCoy, and they seemed to belong to Kirk, who was edging toward him warily.

McCoy dropped his fists, stumbled a few steps back to lean against a clean stretch of wall, and let Kirk approach.

“That’s good.” Kirk had some sort of cloth—napkins, from the bar?--in his hand. He wiped McCoy’s face, and his mouth, and tossed the rag off to the side with the rest of the garbage before pulling McCoy’s arm over his shoulder. “Party’s boring, anyway. Come on, let’s get you home.”  
\--

On the following Tuesday, McCoy happened to glance at the chrono when he was up to his elbows in the guts of a first-year cadet, one of six casualties of on a training mission gone wrong. His shift had ended two hours ago; Kirk had gotten out of class twenty minutes ago. When he didn’t find McCoy at home where he expected him, he’d go find something else to do.

McCoy attached the suture he was holding, then pulled his hands out of the kid’s body and started to strip off his gloves. He’d clean up later; Kirk didn’t mind a little blood.

“Doctor?” the nurse called.

“I have to go,” McCoy said. He pushed out of the operating room and discarded his mask, his gloves.

The nurse followed him. “Doctor!”

“He’s stable enough. Get someone else to close him up.”

“Doctor McCoy!” She planted herself in front of the door, still holding up hands in blood-stained gloves.

“Get someone else or let him die. He’s the one who botched the mission and caused this mess. Get out of my way.” He elbowed past her and ran, not caring who saw him or what they thought.

At the room, McCoy found a note scrawled on a padd on top of his bed. “Out with friends. Don’t wait up.”

McCoy threw the padd across the room, where it met its demise with a sickening crack.  
\--


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When backed into a corner, McCoy had to make a deal with Christopher Pike, Commandant of Cadets at the Imperial Academy. If Kirk had been there, he might have been able to tell McCoy that was a mistake. Kirk, at least, had taken some tactics courses. McCoy must stumble through the consequences of his deal and strike a dangerous balance between the suspicions of two powerful men.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [](http://jaune-chat.livejournal.com/profile)[**jaune_chat**](http://jaune-chat.livejournal.com/) for the constant encouragement, beta-work, and word-smithing, and thanks my whole f-list for listening to me flail.

In the end, McCoy decided to go bravely to his fate rather than wait for Pike to summon him. He thought it might win him some credibility in the man’s eyes. A neat row of faculty townhouses lined the east edge of campus. McCoy stood outside the one assigned to Pike, trying to convince himself to press the door chime. Pike might not even be there. After all, he wouldn’t just be sitting at home every night waiting for McCoy to screw up. For all McCoy knew, he was somewhere on campus right now terrorizing one of his teaching assistants, and McCoy would have a long wait on the front stoop. Great.

McCoy pulled his padd out of his pocket to check the draft messages, which were rigged to auto-send if he didn’t enter a code in the morning: a note to tell Joanna he loved her, a request for Chapel to make sure his body was disposed of quickly and properly, and an admonition to Kirk to watch out for Pike. The sum of McCoy’s life seemed pitiful indeed when he had so little to leave behind: three brief notes and his very own human sacrifice. 

He stepped onto Pike’s front steps and pressed the comm. “It’s McCoy.”

The front door slid open, then the reinforced steel door behind it rolled back to reveal a dark maw like the gates of the underworld the ancients had believed in. McCoy didn’t believe in hell; he had a hard time imagining there was a universe worse than this one. He stepped inside.

Once he’d cleared the entryway and heard the doors roll shut behind him, he passed through an archway into a glowingly-lit living space. The house itself seemed surprisingly inviting: understated black and tan color scheme, clean architectural lines, low-slung furniture. The atmosphere bore little resemblance to the cold utility of the cadet dormitories, or the imposing grandeur of the academic buildings. 

Pike, his instructors’ uniform unbuttoned at the collar, prowled into the front room from a darkened hallway beyond.

“You look like hell, McCoy.”

“Thank you, sir,” he managed. Never let it be said that Leonard McCoy lacked manners, even when he came marching to his death.

“You’d think a doctor would be able to take better care of himself.” Pike moved to a wall alcove that held an array of bottles and glasses, and began to pour two drinks. “You’re a bourbon man, right?”

“Bourbon’s fine.”

Pike crossed the room to hand him a glass with a two ice cubes and a generous measure of golden alcohol. McCoy took the glass and stared into it. Poison didn’t seem like Pike’s style, but he made a rule of not taking drinks from strangers. 

“What is it, cadet?” Pike arranged himself on the low sofa and sipped his own drink. “Sorry that you came here?”

“No.” After trying so desperately to fulfill Pike’s conditions, McCoy felt a pleasant calm now that the ax was going to fall at last. He took a long swig of his drink and savored the smooth burn that disappeared inside him. Pike kept really excellent alcohol. He said, “I’m a man of my word.”

“That you are. I’m impressed you lasted this long.”

“You knew I wouldn’t be able to keep my promise. I told you as much,” McCoy said. If he was as good as condemned, he might as well get answers to the questions that had been bothering him. “So why make me promise in the first place?”

“I wanted to see what you were made of.” Pike raised his glass toward McCoy. “Turns out you’re a better match for Jimmy than I suspected.”

“Excuse me?”

“No one else has held his interest this long. You captivate him. I can use that.”

McCoy curled his mouth around the protest he’d been about to spit out. He couldn’t afford to provoke Pike: not without leverage. “You’re not going to get him expelled?”

“I’m altering the terms of our arrangement. You’ll continue to occupy Kirk as you have been—.”

McCoy slapped his drink down on the nearest flat surface—an end table. “Captain, I can’t--.”

“You will continue as you were.” Pike stood in a graceful movement quicker than McCoy expected of him. “Each time you fail to keep his attention, you’ll report to me for discipline.”

So Pike did expect to take all McCoy’s choices away and leave him shackled between his devotion to Kirk and his fear of a nebulous punishment. He set his shoulders back and said, “No.” 

Pike lifted an eyebrow. “Cadet. I don’t think you understand the situation.” He took a step forward, but McCoy plowed ahead with his defense. 

“The disciplinary hearing is over. If you wanted to ship Jim off, you’d have to trump up some other charge. You could do that, but then you’d have to train another protégé from scratch, and there isn’t time before the Enterprise’s maiden voyage next year.” McCoy had chewed on these facts over the last month as he berated himself for taking Pike’s deal, and he wasn’t going to pass up the chance to spit them back at Pike. “You won’t get rid of him. And if you try to get rid of me, he’ll see your hand in it and again, bye-bye protégé. Are we done here?”

“You really are entertaining.” Pike’s smile had a kind of boyish charm to it that set off warning bells in McCoy. “I see why Jimmy keeps you around.”

“Good night, Captain Pike.” McCoy pivoted on his heel and took three steps toward the door before Pike’s voice stopped him.

“I’ll tell him you’re spying for me.”

McCoy didn’t turn around. He fixed his eyes on the door’s control panel and contemplated running, just getting out before Pike could drip poison words into his ear. But an enemy he could face was less dangerous than an enemy that could strike at any time. Kirk had taught him that. McCoy turned around. “What?” he asked.

“I can make him believe you’ve betrayed him. You’ve given me plenty of evidence.”

McCoy couldn’t seem to move, even to drop the hand that had been reaching for the door, because his mind had devoted his entire attention to scanning through the information for flaws. Pike must have made recordings—had McCoy said anything that had sounded incriminating? McCoy had been deliberately playing on Kik’s paranoia, and if Kirk tried, he would find a reason to trace McCoy’s every interaction back to an insidious source. He was already getting suspicious.

McCoy could too easily imagine the fallout: Kirk would kill him. Not quickly, either. Torture him to death, probably. Pull him apart fiber by fiber. And worst of all, Kirk would get that dead, hollow look in his eyes: the one he got when he’d soaked himself with gore, before McCoy dragged him back from the edge with grumpy admonishments. If Kirk thought McCoy had turned on him, nothing would be left to hold Kirk back from the abyss.

“It’s a hard lesson to learn: how to burn away a weakness like you that’s burrowed under the skin.” Pike prowled toward him in long, smooth strides. “He’d tear out half his heart, destroying you, but he’d do it if he thought you betrayed him.”

McCoy held up a hand, as if that could defend him. “He’d hate you, too, for being in on it.”

“No.” Pike shook his head, and McCoy could have sworn he seemed disappointed. “He expects betrayal from me. He’d hate himself for being deceived. But mostly, he’d hate you for being close enough to hurt him.”

McCoy pictured Kirk’s usual fierce joy as he choked the life out of an enemy. Kirk would take no pleasure in killing McCoy, but he _would_ kill him rather than let him go. There’d be no one left to shake the blankness out of his eyes, after. “What do you want from me?”

“As I said. Our arrangement goes on as before. If you don’t spend the night with Kirk, you come to me.” Pike stood beside him now, throwing shadows over McCoy’s body. ”The other conditions continue: Kirk will know nothing of any of this. If you don’t show up, or if you try to talk to Kirk, I’ll consider our agreement breached.”

“Fine.”

Pike extended his hand. McCoy took it slowly, mechanically. Pike shifted his grip to McCoy’s forearm to pull McCoy to him. “Tonight, you’ve got a debt to pay.”  
\--

Pike favored the riding crop, as it turned out. He left a blanket of red marks across McCoy’s ass and down his thighs. McCoy bore it with his hands obediently gripping the headboard, any noises of pain caught firmly behind his teeth. Kirk was never this methodical in his beatings, but thoughts of what Kirk would do if he could see this little scene had McCoy half-hard with mingled terror and dangerous euphoria. Just when McCoy had begun to consider giving up a few screams, just to help the evening along, Pike took himself in hand and spent himself in scalding lines across the skin he’d marked. He never actually touched McCoy. 

Later, McCoy stood in front of the mirror in Pike’s bedroom, reaching awkwardly around to run a dermal regenerator over the marks on his legs. Pike sat in his armchair watching and nursing a second glass of bourbon. A slice of lines at the center of McCoy’s back resisted his reach, no matter what angle he tried. 

Pike set aside his drink, took the instrument from McCoy, and stood behind him to take over the healing. Their eyes met in the mirror. Pike said gently, “I’m helping you, cadet.” He gripped McCoy’s shoulder. “You don’t see it now, but you’ll thank me for this someday.”  
\--

A renewed sense of determination made McCoy more creative, or at least stripped away any shame he’d held on to. On Saturday morning, while he was lying in bed enjoying some actual sleep, Kirk’s padd sounded its chime for a new message. McCoy hadn’t thought he was awake, but Kirk rolled out of bed, sidled over to the desk where his padd sat, and viewed the message. Kirk grinned as he read, so McCoy doubted it was an update on a homework assignment. In fact, from the way Kirk ran his tongue over his teeth, the message was probably an invitation of some kind.

Damn it. McCoy would have to keep putting blood in the water--his own goddamn blood--to bring Kirk circling back. 

Kirk set the padd back down on the desk and started pulling on clothes. McCoy got up and went straight to the desk. He stared at Kirk’s padd for a moment. He took a deep breath. He knocked the thing off the edge of the desk with a firm flick of his wrist. 

Kirk whirled around to look. McCoy glanced from the fallen padd to Kirk’s puzzled face. He deliberately lifted his foot and brought his heel down—hard—on the screen. Even barefoot, the force was enough to crush the fragile gadget.

Kirk took in the scene in one long glance. McCoy nearly crowed with joy to see the genuine surprise on his face. Then Kirk charged forward. He raised his hand to strike, but McCoy anticipated him. After all, he’d been trained in hand-to-hand by Kirk himself. 

McCoy caught Kirk’s hand as it flew at him, pivoted out of the way, and used Kirk’s momentum to shove him forward. Astonishment that the maneuver had actually worked froze McCoy for a moment, but that was all Kirk needed to sweep McCoy’s legs out from under him, dropping him flat on his back.

Kirk landed neatly astride McCoy’s legs and drove his fist into his left side three times in quick succession. McCoy felt his muscles lock up as pain shot through him. Kirk’s other hand darted up to grab McCoy by the throat, fingers poised to choke.

McCoy bucked half-heartedly against Kirk’s restraint, but he was trapped, as he’d known he would be. His side ached, but he could also feel Kirk’s stiff cock pressing into his belly. 

“Bad boy,” Kirk said mildly. “I was using that padd.”

“It was distracting you.” McCoy pushed his pelvis up against Kirk, who couldn’t have missed how hard he was. 

“Or you’re distracting me.”

McCoy threw his weight to the side in an attempt to get free, but Kirk kept his seat like an expert rider. He tightened his grip on McCoy’s throat until he settled. 

“You hold your breath before you move,” Kirk said. “Gives it away. Work on that.”

“Fine. Get off me.”

“No.” Kirk looked him over, as if considering. “No, I don’t think so. You owe me an apology.”

“I don’t owe you anything.”

“You’re not getting up until you say you’re sorry.” Kirk leaned forward, putting uncomfortable pressure on McCoy’s throat and his trapped cock. 

“You think you have more patience than me?” McCoy rasped.

“Maybe not, but I know I’m more creative.”

Deciding to conserve his breath, McCoy only grunted in response.

Kirk watched him for another moment, then pushed to his feet and held out a hand. 

Even knowing that nothing good could follow Kirk’s quick capitulation, McCoy gave Kirk has hand and let Kirk help him to his feet. “That’s bett—hey!”

Kirk surged forward to shove McCoy onto the bed facedown. Kirk leapt on top of him, knocking the air out of his lungs. He wrenched McCoy’s wrists up to pin them at the center of his back and clamped his knees on either side of McCoy’s thighs, thoroughly pinning him. “If I’m going to be patient,” Kirk said, “There’s no reason I can’t give my knees a break. My doctor’s always telling me to take better care of myself.”

McCoy grumbled against the sheets his face pressed into. “I’m not sorry I broke your damn padd.” He rolled his body against the bed, and pushed his ass up against Kirk. “And you’re not sorry, either.”

“You don’t usually flirt with punishment. What is this? A cry for attention?” 

“Maybe I’m sick of being taken for granted.”

“You don’t own me, Bones. I own you, and I get to say when we play.” Kirk shoved McCoy’s trapped hands further up his back, straining his shoulders.

McCoy made himself stop struggling and go limp. “I know,” he said. Of course he knew. Everyone else got to say.

“Good.” Kirk let up his grip marginally, but didn’t release McCoy. “Now, if you need a little something to tide you over...”

“I don’t need _anything_ from you.”

“It’s amazing that you’re still alive with that kind of attitude.” Kirk moved and shoved McCoy in the same moment, pushing McCoy over on his back so Kirk could straddle and pin him again. “Do you want me to leave you alone, Bones? Really alone, I mean. Unattached. Without protection. I could throw you to the wolves.”

It hit McCoy then that he’d been around Kirk’s bullshit a long time: long enough to know a bluff when he saw one. The obvious markers of threat were there: the narrowed eyes, the glint of sharp teeth, the too-relaxed posture. But McCoy had often looked into the deep well of menace that could lay beneath Kirk’s civilized veneer, like looking into the yawning abyss of space. Now he saw none of that darkness in Kirk’s blue eyes. 

Kirk wouldn’t let McCoy go. 

For some reason, Kirk had become attached. Maybe not attached enough to make an impossible deal with a ruthless instructor, but McCoy could no longer doubt that the bond between them went beyond predator and prey. Kirk wouldn’t get tired of McCoy because there might not actually be a limit to how low McCoy would sink when Kirk tried to drag him down.

“Yeah,” McCoy said, because Kirk was still waiting for a reply. “Give me something to tide me over.”  
\--

McCoy woke up to see sunlight streaming in through the narrow windows. From the orange tint of the light, McCoy had an unpleasant feeling that he’d missed his afternoon classes.

He tried to sit up and found his arms still bound to the headboard with strips of yet another ruined uniform. They were tied skillfully, but gave a bit when McCoy pulled. He should be able to squirm out of them, with some effort. As he shifted, a dull pain welled through him, reminder of what Kirk had done. His ass throbbed from Kirk’s overeager delivery of his gift: a sizeable butt plug that McCoy had strict orders not to remove. 

Kirk himself was nowhere to be seen.

Using a combination of teeth, dexterity, and willpower, McCoy yanked one hand free of its binding. He groped for his padd on the bedside table. Instead, he found an old-fashioned paper note sitting atop Kirk’s ruined padd. 

_If you want a padd, you’ll need to get a replacement. Looks like yours had an accident. I’ll be back tomorrow night. My present still should be where I left it._

“Damn it.”

The worst thing now, McCoy decided, was that he had to escape from Kirk’s bonds only to submit himself to Pike’s punishment. He had no idea what resources Pike drew on to make certain McCoy fulfilled his promise. For all McCoy knew, he and Kirk both had subcutaneous tracking implants, courtesy of Pike. True, considering the injuries Kirk racked up, there was little of Kirk’s skin left that McCoy hadn’t personally patched back together, but McCoy preferred not to underestimate Pike. 

Still, he’d be damned if he’d put his neck to the butcher’s block willingly. Pike had been content to leave McCoy relatively intact last time, but that didn’t mean he’d do so again. In fact, McCoy imagined that Pike was the type of man to impose harsher punishments for each subsequent failure. He saw no reason to test that theory until he had to. 

So McCoy showered, dressed, ate dinner—soup from the replicator: nothing he’d bring up later-- and reviewed two days worth of Xenotoxin notes. He meant to go to Pike. Perhaps it was that the toy lodged inside him provided a solid, all-too-real reminder of Kirk’s presence every time he moved. Or perhaps he was simply a coward. Whatever the reason, McCoy ended up laying down as the sun set, promising himself just a quick rest before he went off to accept his punishment for allowing Kirk to slip away for a night.  
\--

When he woke next, the room was dark but for the spill of cold light from outside. The chair from Kirk’s desk had been re-situated next to the bed. In it sat Captain Pike. 

McCoy shot up in bed, surprised that he was able to do so, that Pike hadn’t restrained, poisoned, or otherwise injured him while he slept. At least, not that he could determine.

Pike didn’t move in his chair at McCoy’s flailing. He stayed leaning back, arms crossed over his chest, just watching. “I know you’ve learned better than to keep Jimmy waiting,” he said, in a voice that spoke of deep, terrifying patience. “The question on my mind is, why would you choose not to show me the same respect?”

“I’m not your lap dog,” he snapped, and immediately regretted the phrasing. 

“But you are Kirk’s.” A slow smile spread over Pike’s face. “And where is your master, anyway?”

“Kirk is--.”

Pike held up the note from the nightstand. “Gone. Off with Cadet Scott, in fact. I hear they’re making quite a night of it.”

McCoy wondered once more how exactly Pike knew so damn much, but his curiosity drowned in the onset of terror as Pike stood to loom over him. 

“McCoy, this bargain only works if you play by the rules. If I have to keep looking over your shoulder, this whole charade is going to become very wearisome for me, and then, I expect, for you.”

McCoy considered further resistance. He knew the location of a dozen weapons in the room. However, he also knew that he had no chance in a fight against Pike, armed or otherwise. He had nowhere to run. He said, “I understand.”

“Good. Get up. You’re going to make it up to me for the inconvenience of coming all the way across campus.”

McCoy had never completely learned how to turn off his reactions to this kind of treatment. Kirk had told him--frequently and at great length--about the necessity of a poker face, but McCoy's best attempts at hiding his reactions proved laughably insufficient in the face of interrogation skills honed by years of Imperial service. Pike seemed to revel in McCoy's little weaknesses: his protective flinch as Pike moved past him, his gritted teeth as Pike rubbed himself through his uniform pants, and his stubborn blush when Pike at last made him strip. 

Pike chuckled as he prowled in a tight circle around McCoy. "Do I have Kirk to thank for this little surprise?"

McCoy couldn't help the clench of muscles that made him feel every inch of the butt plug inside him. "I'm supposed to keep it in while he's gone."

"Can't say I blame him. If I had you for a pet, I'd want to keep you stretched and ready, too."

"I'm not his pet."

"You said lap dog, cadet, not me."

McCoy decided not to try to explain himself. He wouldn't win a verbal sparring matching with Pike any more than he'd win a physical one, especially not standing here exposed and on display for a Pike, who was still in full uniform and, presumably, armed.   
"You would look so pretty in a collar." Pike stepped up behind McCoy. His finger traced a ring around McCoy's neck, almost too lightly to feel. "Something old fashioned, like leather, perhaps. Just so there's no question who you belong to."

"There is no question who I belong to," McCoy snapped. 

Pike's laugh sent a puff of hot breath ruffling McCoy's hair. "Loyal, too. Good trait in a pet."

"I am not--."

"Quiet." Pike's command had the power to silence a room full of stone-cold Imperial officers, and McCoy had no defense against it. He stood silently until Pike ordered, "Onto the bed. All fours."

McCoy gulped in a breath to calm his galloping heart. He wouldn't be afraid, not of Pike. He could do this for one night. Pike had to be letting McCoy get away with this back-talk because he wanted something from him, and as long as McCoy had that, Pike wouldn't kill him. Or at least, he wouldn't kill him on purpose. If McCoy could just survive the night, Kirk would come home tomorrow. McCoy certainly had a lot of experience surviving. Strange, that once he’d wanted so badly to be left alone, and now he only wanted Kirk to return and claim him.

Until then, McCoy had to stay alive. He climbed onto the bed on his knees, awkwardly shuffled forward to position himself near the center, and put his hands down in front of him. 

"Good." The mattress shifted near the foot of the bed. "Now tell me. How long ago did he put this in you?" He traced his fingers lightly over the crease of McCoy's ass, skirting the edge of the plug. 

"I didn't say he put it in. I said he told me not to remove it."

"Of course. But Kirk's a hands-on kind of leader. He likes things personal, doesn't he?"

McCoy concentrated on not clenching his teeth hard enough to break a tooth, and decided Pike's question must be rhetorical. 

"I said when did he put it in?"

"Dunno," McCoy muttered.

"When, Cadet?"

"At eleven hundred hours. Close to."

"Good. Is it new, or has he used it on you before?"

"New." Kirk liked to improvise, using whatever came to hand. McCoy hadn't been sure what to make of the fact that Kirk apparently _acquired_ this toy for the express purpose of using it on McCoy. If he hadn't been so pissed, he might have been flattered. 

Pike's hand continued its light, almost ticklish tracing around McCoy's hole. "Did he stretch you before he put it in?"

McCoy nodded. His dick, dangling between his legs, began to stiffen at the vivid sense-memory of Kirk's mouth on him as he stretched McCoy, lazy and indulgent.

"Tell me how he did it."

"With his damn fingers," McCoy snapped. 

Pike's hand landed once, hard, against McCoy's bare ass, causing him to clench involuntarily around the bulk of the plug. Pike leaned close to McCoy's ear. "Jimmy may find your attitude charming, but you will keep a civil tongue when you speak to me, boy."

McCoy closed his eyes and tried to swallow around the tightness in his throat that might once have been something like pride. "Yes, sir."

"That's better. Now, tell me how he prepared you."

"He... I was on my back," McCoy said. He hated this, hated putting into words what he'd done with Kirk, especially for some sick performance. Kirk had never demanded dirty talk from him; he'd never seen any point, when he liked the sound of his own voice so much. Pike, on the other hand, seemed determined to wring every last ounce of humiliation from McCoy's subjugation. "He made me lift up my hips and hold there while he..."

Pike's hand curled around his ass and squeezed. "Go on, cadet."

McCoy huffed out a breath and dredged up the will to continue. "He lubricated a finger and inserted it into my rectum. After removing it and inserting it several times he added a second finger."

"Cadet," Pike said sharply. "Kirk doesn't keep you around for your medical expertise, and I assure you, that's not why I'm here, either. So stop being cute. Tell me, did it hurt when he fingered you?"

"No." Especially not with Kirk's lips wrapped around his dick and skimming those fingers across his prostate with every pass. 

"Were you hard?"

"Yeah." So hard it was painful, since Kirk pulled away each time McCoy came close to release, keeping him achingly on edge for far too long. 

"Do you get hard every time he touches you?"

"No," McCoy said quickly. Not every time. Damn inconvenient to be hard every hour he spent with the man, since Kirk couldn't keep his hands to himself. Every time Kirk made even half an effort to get him hard, though: yes, to his great frustration. 

Pike's hand dipped between McCoy's leg to tug at his erection. "You're hard now. Is this for me, or are you thinking of him?"

Dangerous, dangerous. McCoy had no good way to answer that question, so he tried bucking lightly into Pike's hand, instead. 

Pike tightened his fingers cruelly around McCoy's dick and chuckled. "Good little whore, cadet. You've learned some tricks. That's why you're such an excellent distraction for our boy."

McCoy bit back the denial that came to mind too readily. Pike didn’t share Kirk’s indulgent approval of McCoy’s back-chatter. He had never demanded obedience from McCoy quite this way. Even when Kirk blindfolded McCoy, or beat him, or forced awful choices on him in public, he still had this intense curiosity about him, as if McCoy were a particularly interesting science experiment. Pike seemed more interested in bending—or breaking—McCoy to his purposes.

“Now tell me what else Kirk did to you today.”

McCoy closed his eyes and pictured it. If he didn’t think about censoring his words, maybe he could give Pike what he wanted. “He fingered me so long I thought he might try to put his whole hand in me. He was using more lube than usual, and anytime he does something different, I worry.”

“You must spend a lot of time worrying,” Pike said. He slid his hand up the length of McCoy’s cock, and rubbed his thumb over the head. “Go on.”

“Then he tied my hands to the headboard.” He’d had to wrestle McCoy a little for that, but since restraints usually absolved McCoy from having to participate, he had acquiesced.

“With what?”

“My uniform. He tore up my uniform. Telling me he learned all about improvising materials in his Practical Torture class.”

“Mm. Good for him. Glad to see he’s getting some use out of his coursework.” Pike’s hand slid more quickly over McCoy’s erection. “Did he tie your legs?”

“No. He likes it when…” McCoy stumbled to a halt, suddenly thinking better of the idea of sharing one of Kirk’s preferences with anyone, let alone a future enemy like Pike. 

“Say it.” Pike twisted his hand cruelly around the crown of McCoy’s dick.

McCoy clenched his hands into fists to keep from bucking into Pike’s grip. “He likes the challenge. If I can fight him a little, and he has to hold me down.”

“Yes, that sounds like him. Go on.”

“He fucked me,” McCoy said. Kirk had slid in so easily, with all that prep, and he had gone slowly at first, rocking lazily in McCoy and keeping them both at a pleasant simmer until McCoy had started pushing back, urging him on. Only then had Kirk given him a proper pounding. McCoy’s dick twitched in Pike’s hand at the memory.

“Good. Did he come inside you?”

“Yes.” McCoy knew the look well: Kirk’s face triumphant, a freer cousin to the expression he wore standing over the body of an enemy. Kirk didn’t look like that every time he came, but, when McCoy had the luxury to notice, he’d never missed seeing that look when Kirk finished inside him.

“Continue.” Pike’s fingers wrapped around McCoy’s cock and squeezed firmly, and McCoy had to concentrate not to thrust into his grip. 

“He showed me what he’d gotten for me.” McCoy had been expecting some instrument of torture, so a mere sex toy—even one as intimidating as the hefty metal plug—had been a relief. “And then he put it inside me.” McCoy conveniently omitted the part where he’d struggled, landing a glancing blow on Kirk’s shoulder and earning himself a few curses and a persistent, infuriating smirk. 

"You can do better than that, McCoy. Or I can make you demonstrate."

McCoy didn't dare give Pike an excuse to order any kind of demonstration. "He put some more lube on the plug. Then he told me to hold still--."

"Did you?"

"Yes." McCoy didn't bother mentioning that he'd agreed to do so only when Kirk told him the alternative was inserting the thing himself while Kirk supervised. Watching McCoy carry out orders wasn't as much fun for Kirk as taking McCoy apart himself, but he knew Kirk would have been happy enough with plan B if McCoy had continued to resist. "I held still, and he worked it into me."

"Did it hurt?"

"No."

Pike slid his hand down to squeeze McCoy's balls cruelly. 

"Yes. Yes, it hurt." McCoy knew how to endure such things. He had kept his breathing steady, his body relaxed, and his eyes firmly averted from the gleeful expression he knew Kirk wore. It had really only been the last push, the last sharp spark of all-encompassing pain before the toy had slid home, secure inside McCoy. Kirk had looked down on him, blue eyes bright with pride of achievement, as if he'd discovered some magnificent stellar phenomenon instead of just a further depth of McCoy's desperate submission. 

“Did you get off?” Pike's hand slid over McCoy's cock again with just the right amount of pressure to drag McCoy's attention inexorably to the release building inside him. 

“I guess,” McCoy grunted. Kirk had made sure of it, his hand moving expertly on McCoy as he leaned over him whispering filth into his ear: how pretty he looked with Kirk's present inside him, how much he liked McCoy's defiant little snarls, how Kirk wanted to invent new ways to fuck just to see how McCoy would take it. 

"Did you get off, cadet?"

Kirk had looked so damn proud when McCoy had finally given it up, squirming under Kirk's hands as he spilled his release. McCoy's cock throbbed at the memory of Kirk licking his fingers clean. "Yes."

Pike moved like a striking bird of prey. He pulled McCoy’s wrists behind his back, leaving him to collapse against the sheets. He draped himself over McCoy, pressing him into the bed. “Now finish.”

“Dammit.” McCoy struggled against Pike's grip as his dick rubbed against the sheets. He needed more. 

“You want me to help you?” Pike’s hand drifted to his ass, and one long finger tapped against the base of the butt plug Kirk had inserted.

“No!”

“Then finish it yourself.”

McCoy pressed his forehead hard against the mattress and breathed in the smell of mingled sex: his and Kirk’s. He thrust against the sheets, humping them like an animal. He tried to ignore the ache in his abused shoulders and the unmistakable feel of Pike's clothed erection digging into his ass. 

“What are you thinking of, cadet?”

“England,” McCoy spat, but Kirk swam in his thoughts. Kirk's fucked-out, raspy voice whispering depraved nonsense. Kirk's eyes watching for his every reaction. Kirk's fingers moving expertly inside him. He clenched against the heavy weight of the butt plug Kirk had left in him. When he bucked into the sheets, the plug jostled against nerves that sent a violent burst of sensation rippling through him. He could almost hear Kirk's crow of success as he thrust again, triggering another shove of pleasure that knocked his orgasm out of him. He held a groan between his teeth as he spilled onto the sheets. The tension bled out of his muscles, and he sank further into the bed. 

"Yes," Pike hissed. He rutted against McCoy, the harsh cloth of his uniform dragging against McCoy's skin. He grabbed a handful of McCoy's hair and yanked his neck back. At McCoy's grunt of pain, Pike stiffened against him. McCoy made a note of that-- Pike liked the sounds he made. Kirk would appreciate having that information. That is, if McCoy ever had the occasion to tell him about this. 

After, Pike emerged from the bathroom, looking surprisingly crisp in his instructors’ uniform. McCoy hauled himself off the bed, ignoring the protest of his screaming muscled, and stood at parade rest with his eyes fixed against the far wall. 

Pike moved to stand in front of him. "I trust I won't need to come here again, cadet."

"No, sir."

“If you continue to disrespect our agreement, there will be consequences.”

“Yes, sir.” McCoy could easily imagine. So far Pike had only been playing with him, batting him around with only a fraction of the strength he possessed. McCoy didn’t need a reminder that even Kirk was capable of far more creative cruelty, and in some things, the student had not yet surpassed the master. 

“Entertain your roommate, and it won’t be a problem. Keep up the good work, McCoy.” Pike clapped McCoy on his bare shoulder, almost as if they were fellow officers, and walked out. 

McCoy flopped back on the bed and winced as the plug shifted inside him. He allowed himself one moment of bitter, hysterical laughter before he hauled himself out of bed to wash the sheets.  
\--

After he’d showered, cleaned the sheets, made the bed, ate lunch, and showered again, McCoy received a message from Doctor Pruri asking if he could come in for the evening to replace Doctor Manatauk, an adjunct instructor who’d been “unexpectedly reassigned.” McCoy wondered idly if she now resided at the bottom of the San Francisco bay, but he sent back a message that he’d take the shift. He owed Pruri one, since his Kirk-sitting duties had made him a less-than-stellar employee recently. Besides, when Kirk returned from his wandering, he’d be likely to hunt McCoy down himself rather than go in search of other prey, and Kirk always enjoyed a good chase. 

It wasn’t until McCoy had begun his walk to the hospital that he realized signing up to work an eight-hour shift while wearing a sizable butt-plug hadn’t been entirely wise. Before he'd made it half-way, his cock had filled out in interest. The plug continued to press against sensitive places inside McCoy with every step. He forced himself to breathe, and not to blush, and he repeated to himself that he'd worked under much more distracting conditions before. None came to mind, but McCoy felt certain they'd existed. 

Between patients--Manatauk had been assigned to a floor full of advanced students recovering from injuries received in the line of their coursework--McCoy stole into the bathroom to splash water on his face and think about anything but his traitorous body. He managed to quell his arousal by wondering if Kirk would find some evidence of Pike's presence in their room, some subtle clue that McCoy had accidentally left. The thought of having to explain a visit from Pike sent an icy rush through McCoy more effective than any amount cold water. 

He completed his rounds up to his own professional standards. If his patients hadn't been impressed with his bedside manner, well, anyone in the service of the Empire knew better than to complain about medical care that didn’t land them in a body bag. 

McCoy should have started on the evening's paperwork, but he couldn't bear to sit at a desk, squirming around with Kirk's toy inside him. He stood in the staff locker room, staring into his locker and trying to think about horrible diseases and devastating injuries to ward off the feelings of pleasure that pulsed through him every time he shifted. Even in his absence, Kirk had wormed his way inexorably inside McCoy, demanding the obedience of his body and eroding his ability to think of anything else. 

"It's a waste of Imperial resources to have you stand idle like this when you're on duty."

McCoy pulled his head up and glanced over his shoulder to see Kirk leaning in the doorway. He returned to slumping against the bank of lockers. "Better than having me botch a surgery because my focus is shot."

"And why," Kirk asked as he prowled forward, "Would your focus be shot?"

"You know."

"Yeah." Kirk slotted himself in behind McCoy. He slid one hand around to cup McCoy's hard-on where it tented his uniform. "You missed me."

"You made sure of that," McCoy snapped. 

Kirk's other hand slid across McCoy's ass, then pressed hard against the firm base of the plug. McCoy's hips jerked forward. "I see you’ve been enjoying my present.”

“I’m working, Jim.” McCoy pulled away from Kirk's insistent hands. "As you so astutely noted, I'm still on Imperial time." 

Kirk glanced around the room and held out his hands in mock confusion. “I don’t see any injured cadets screaming for your attention.”

“They don’t all scream. Not everyone on this campus is attention-starved.”

Kirk moved with deadly speed, planting his hand firmly against the door before McCoy could pull it open. "I told you that if you found my attentions troublesome, I could always leave you on your own."

McCoy dropped his hand from the door. He had only so much capacity for fear, and the number of threats he’d faced in the past weeks had started to wear down his patience. He spoke through gritted teeth. “You know that’s not what I want. What I _do_ want is to be able to do my damn job without interference.”

Kirk kept his hand planted where it was, and leaned fractionally closer to McCoy. “You think as a CMO you’ll always have ideal conditions for carrying out your duties? That you’ll get to carry on with your healing unmolested, in peace-time conditions, with all the right supplies across the whole length and breadth of the Empire?”

“This is for my own good, then. Everyone is just trying to help me,” McCoy hissed. His growing anger had eclipsed his arousal. The pleasurable sensations that shot through him at every shift of his weight only served to amplify the need to lash out at his tormentor. “I am not one of your little disciples that follow you around, Jim. I am a trained surgeon. I have advanced scientific degrees. When I operate, I hold a man’s life in my hands, and that includes the dozen-odd times you’ve been under my knife. I’ve killed for the Empire, and I will again. I am not your toy.”

Kirk surged forward, knocking McCoy back against the door as he attacked McCoy’s mouth. 

McCoy tried to shove him off, but Kirk leaned his whole weight into the kiss. He caught McCoy’s wrists to anchor him while he shoved his tongue inside McCoy. Kirk snapped his hips forward, knocking McCoy back against the door. The plug slid against McCoy’s prostate, knocking a groan out of him that Kirk swallowed greedily. 

McCoy gave a violent shake of his head to dislodge Kirk. He snarled, “I’m not yours to _play with_ , Jim.”

“I’m not playing.” Kirk rolled against him, shoving his ass against the door and jarring the plug. “You’re a big bad Imperial doctor, and you belong to me.”

“I don’t belong to you.”

Kirk’s arm moved to brace against McCoy’s throat: controlled, but ready to apply pressure. “Yeah.” His other hand grabbed McCoy’s hard-on through his uniform pants. “This says different, Bones, sure as if you were wearing a collar with my name on it. You belong to me.”

McCoy fought back a wave of arousal at the image Kirk’s words conjured, then a wave of shame as he thought of Pike’s words: _You said lap dog, cadet, not me._ He choked out, “You don’t want a toy. You don’t want a little rag doll that rolls over for you every time. Get off me.”

Kirk tightened his grip to squeeze McCoy’s cock. It should have hurt, but instead it just felt good, sensation piled on top of maddening sensation as he squirmed in Kirk’s grasp. “Say you’re mine.”

McCoy sucked in air as best he could, but he didn’t dare give in. Not yet. “You don’t want to have to control my every move. You like not knowing what I’ll do next.”

“I always know what you’ll do next.”

McCoy jerked his head forward against Kirk’s restraint to drag his tongue across Kirk’s mouth. Kirk’s bare moment of freeze betrayed his surprise, but in the next second he’d darted forward, chasing McCoy’s tongue back into his mouth. 

Then he pulled away and pressed his arm a little harder against McCoy’s throat. “Say it.” Kirk prompted, ‘I.”

McCoy closed his eyes. Kirk surrounded him: Kirk, looming over him, touching him, Kirk’s handiwork filling him up, Kirk’s scent soaking into his skin, another invisible claim. And still Kirk wouldn’t be content with mastering McCoy’s body. Kirk needed more from McCoy. Maybe he even needed it as desperately as McCoy needed Kirk. He opened his eyes. “I,” McCoy said, looking directly at Kirk.

“’Belong.’”

“Belong.”

“’To you.’”

McCoy nodded, hearing the words from Kirk’s mouth. “To you.”

“Need to fuck you. Right now.”

McCoy didn’t get a chance to respond before Kirk was pulling at his uniform. In a moment, his pants and underwear were around his ankles, and his face was pressed to the wall as Kirk knocked his legs apart. Kirk’s clever fingers turned the base of the plug to rotate it inside him until McCoy panted, “Jim.” Then Kirk dragged it out of him in one painfully slow pull. 

A soft clunk meant the toy had been discarded in a pile of Kirk’s clothes. After that, McCoy had no attention to spare for his surroundings, because Kirk was pushing into him in one long, smooth stroke. 

“You’re ready for me, aren’t you, Bones? Slicked up and open for business, just waiting for me to come claim my spot.”

“Ung,” McCoy replied. Kirk’s dick, the hot weigh of it, felt like a relief after the unyielding press of bulbous metal inside him. More than that, Kirk knew just how to move to hit the bundle of nerves the plug had only teased. 

“That’s right, Bones. Let me hear you.” Kirk shoved a hand between McCoy and the door to take McCoy’s dick in hand. Kirk stroked him roughly as he rocked into him. 

McCoy drew his bottom lip into his mouth and bit down, hard, against noises that threatened to escape. McCoy needed this comfort, this re-assertion of Kirk’s protection to wipe out Pike’s touch. But damned if he’d show Kirk he needed it. 

Kirk panted in his ear as he fucked McCoy against the door. He thumbed the head of McCoy’s cock where pre-come was flowing freely, and chuckled. “You still think I don’t own this ass? You love this, Bones. You can grumble all you want, but you still get off on this.” He leaned in close and nipped at McCoy’s ear. “You get off on me.”

Kirk speared into him at just a slight angle. A gasp burst past McCoy’s defenses, and his hips stuttered up, sending his cock slipping through Kirk’s grip as his orgasm ripped through him. Kirk fucked him through the aftershocks. When McCoy’s knees buckled, Kirk wrapped an arm around his waist and let him down gently. He knelt over McCoy’s prone form, wrapped his fist around his cock, and brought himself off quickly, marking his claim across McCoy’s skin.   
\--

For the next three days, they settled into a pattern: a quick fuck in the morning followed by a day of classes or a shift at this hospital. McCoy would track down Kirk in the evening and try to gauge whether he was in the mood to fight or fuck, and then indulge him. 

On Thursday, McCoy realized why the routine felt familiar: he’d had this same calm, domestic monotony for a few weeks right before his marriage imploded. That night, he knelt under Kirk’s desk, sucking him off while Kirk completed an assignment for Advanced Astrophysics. Normally, McCoy would be watching and listening for Kirk’s reactions, ready for the inevitable change in Kirk’s mercurial mood. Tonight, his mind raced in panicked circles. When he closed his eyes, McCoy heard the sound of a med scanner’s frantic beeping, saw an inestimable tide of blood oozing between his fingers, felt flesh growing cold under his hands. He was going to lose this—lose Kirk—despite all he could do. Balance like this couldn’t hold; certainly something was about to go terribly wrong. 

“Well.” Kirk pushed his chair out from the desk, dragging his dick free of McCoy’s mouth. “That’s certainly one of the ten worst blowjobs I’ve ever had.”

“If you could suck your own cock, it wouldn’t be a problem.” The taunt came too quickly out of McCoy’s mouth, an automatic response to Kirk’s criticism. 

“That’s for damn sure.” Kirk threw himself on the bed. He propped his back against the headboard, picked up his padd, and resumed his calculations. McCoy sat blinking in confusion for a few seconds until Kirk snapped his fingers. “Come here.”

McCoy thought about re-iterating that he wasn’t a pet, but Kirk seemed too mellow to rile. Mellow, or bored, McCoy thought morosely. He hauled himself to his feet, gritting his teeth against the pain in his aching knees, and went to attend to Kirk. 

Later, with Kirk propped up in bed still entering calculations on his padd while McCoy rode his cock, McCoy wondered if this was what their life might have been like in another year or two. That is, if McCoy hadn’t fucked it all up so spectacularly in a way that meant their relationship would probably crumble into fiery ruins any minute now. If they’d had years to serve on a ship together, they might have found this kind of balance. Even on an Imperial warship full of back-stabbing hooligans, there would have been stretches of peace where the two of them could have a lazy fuck and ignore the rest of the world. 

He tried to relax and enjoy the relative calm of the moment, until his thighs ached and trembled from raising and lowering himself on Kirk. He slid down until he could rest in Kirk’s lap, fully impaled.

Kirk glanced up from his padd and said, “Keep going. I’ve only got three more problems.”

“I’ll give you problems,” McCoy grunted.

Kirk fisted a hand in McCoy’s hair to pull his head back and administer a sloppy kiss. “No you won’t,” he said.

McCoy replied with a wordless grumble of warning, but a place inside his ribcage warmed when he realized Kirk wasn’t bored with this—with him. Their routine may have been comfortable, but Kirk didn’t detest what they had the way he hated everything else that smacked of order and reason. In fact, he seemed to be making a conscious exception. 

Kirk swatted a hand against McCoy’s thigh. “Keep going.”

McCoy gave a long-suffering sigh, just to keep up appearances, but he obeyed.  
\--


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When backed into a corner, McCoy had to make a deal with Christopher Pike, Commandant of Cadets at the Imperial Academy. If Kirk had been there, he might have been able to tell McCoy that was a mistake. Kirk, at least, had taken some tactics courses. McCoy must stumble through the consequences of his deal and strike a dangerous balance between the suspicions of two powerful men.

Friday night, McCoy came home to find Kirk adjusting the cuffs on his dress uniform.

“We going out?” McCoy asked mildly. He studiously ignored the uptick in his pulse at the thought of his last public outing with Kirk, and told himself that Kirk would hardly wear his dress uniform to a bar.

“ _I’m_ going out,” Kirk said.

McCoy made himself sit at his desk, as if his body wasn’t suddenly screaming danger in every last drop of his blood. He’d have to go to Pike, and it would be worse this time. McCoy sat and tried to look casual as his mind picked the situation apart, looking for an opportunity he could turn to his advantage. There must be a clue here he wasn’t grasping—-the uniform. “In that get-up? You going to a disciplinary hearing?”

“Ha.” Kirk sat on the bed and began pulling on his boots. “Pike got an invitation to this black tie event in the city. Some simpering civilians congratulating themselves on their own asinine achievements. He can’t go, so I’m taking his ticket.”

“Pike.” McCoy could feel Pike’s hands on him, pinning his arms. Pike wouldn’t be content just to watch, next time.

“Should be a great evening. Lots of social climbing sentients looking for a good time. You shouldn’t wait up.”

“Pike,” he said again. McCoy had known Pike hadn’t expected him to succeed, but he hadn’t thought Pike would deliberately make McCoy’s job harder. If, as he claimed, Pike wanted to keep Kirk from taking dangerous risks, sending him off to fancy parties with important non-Fleet people might not be the best way to go about it. McCoy pulled himself up from his chair and went to stand in front of Kirk, blocking his way to the door. “You don’t think Pike might have an ulterior motive for sending you?”

“Pike always has an ulterior motive.” Kirk glanced up from tying his boots and gave McCoy a lazy smile. “Relax, Bones. I won’t be in any physical danger. If anything, he wants me to make some connections, maybe go home with someone important.”

“Jim, don’t go.”

“Don’t worry, old man.” Kirk reached up, grabbed McCoy by the front of his shirt, tugged him down onto the bed and rolled on top of him. He groped him through his pants while kissing him thoroughly. “I’ll be back in the morning.”

“It’s not a good idea,” McCoy said through Kirk’s kisses. “Something’s going to happen.”

“Look at you, mother hen,” Kirk laughed. He stood up, ran a hand through his hair and tugged down his dress uniform tunic. “Nothing’s going to happen. I know how to take care of myself in a crowd.”

“Stay here tonight.” McCoy cast about desperately for something to offer. “You can cut me.”

Kirk looked at him sharply, then shook his head and laughed. “You’re hilarious. That’s something I don’t do with toys I want to keep. Besides, you hate bloodplay. Unsanitary, and all that.”

“Something else, then. Whatever you want.”

“I already get whatever I want.” Kirk flashed a self-satisfied grin and walked away. His hand was on the door. In another moment, he’d be gone again. McCoy would have to take his punishment: another night of Pike’s hands on him, Pike’s voice commanding him, Pike’s poisoned words wrapping McCoy’s feelings for Kirk around him like a noose.

“Jim, please!”

Kirk stopped. “What did you say?”

“Please.”

Kirk turned halfway around, as if he didn’t dare look at McCoy. “Are you begging?”

“Please.” McCoy realized his was on his knees on the bed. He made himself move, stand. “I’ll do whatever you want. Don’t go.”

“This isn’t funny, Bones.” Kirk’s smile slipped, and he seemed to hold onto it by sheer will.

“It’s not a joke. Please, Jim. Don’t fucking leave.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Nothing. Jim--.”

“It’s not nothing.” Kirk closed the space between them in three quick strides and clamped his hands against McCoy’s temples. “What is it? What did you do?”

McCoy had never been the kind to coolly calculate the odds. In surgery, when something went wrong, he simply did what needed to be done with steady hands until the patient’s heart stopped beating, and sometimes beyond. Now, he couldn’t see what to do, couldn’t think, couldn’t act.

If their positions had been reversed, Kirk would have had contingency plans, exit strategies, or at least a plan to stall. McCoy had been in Imperial service too long to not believe in no-win scenarios, but he should at least be able to muster some defense. He had no defense against Kirk, and never had.

“What have you done?” Kirk’s blue eyes searched McCoy’s face, looking for clues. McCoy knew the evidence he was putting together, just as he’d feared: McCoy had been acting strangely, he’d been trying to manipulate Kirk, he must be planning something, he must be working for an enemy.

“Jim,” he croaked, and he saw Kirk’s face crumple in disappointment.

Kirk shoved him away. McCoy saw only a moving blur before Kirk’s fist impacted his head. _That’s it,_ McCoy thought muzzily. _Now he’ll kill me._ He’d seen Kirk fight, of course, but Kirk had never hit him, not like this: the way he’d attack an enemy. Kirk hit him twice more: an uppercut to the jaw and a solid punch to the gut: moves calculated to disorient and debilitate. McCoy stumbled back and slumped to the ground.

He saw Kirk go for the med kit lying in the corner, but he couldn’t coordinate his limbs well enough to move away when Kirk came toward him with the hypospray.

“Don’t,” he pleaded, because dying of some horrible xenodisease was far, far below “beaten to death by James T. Kirk” on the list of ways he wanted to die.

“You don’t tell me what to do, Bones.” The cold edge in Kirk’s voice sliced through McCoy’s pain and right to the center of him, holding him immobile. “You don’t tell me anything.”

The hypospray hissed its contents into McCoy’s neck. The room began to whirl and tilt around him. His fingers numbed, then his hands. Some kind a paralytic, then, the kind the disciplinary committee used to keep their victims still for torture, perhaps. McCoy had a few in his bag. He hoped Kirk hadn’t used the malatocin. He’d seen that stuff cause nasty, permanent nerve damage. Then again, if Kirk was about to torture him, damaged nerves might come in handy.

McCoy’s mind seemed to be drifting in a pleasant haze somewhere beyond his body. Snatches of his surroundings floated up past him: a scrape of a chair against the floor, the press of Kirk’s boot under his hip to turn his body over, the beep of a padd being activated, a blur of movement as someone moved past him, the clatter of a metal instrument on a hard surface like tools on a surgical tray. He thought he saw two points of blue, blue light flying after him, following him into the dark.

McCoy faded back into the world with his face pressed to hard, poly-synthetic flooring. The cool surface felt soothing against McCoy’s throbbing temple. Something sticky dripped from the end of his chin. Blood. His entire head resounded with pain. He tried to move, but a foot braced against his spine, between his shoulder blades, forced him to lie still.

“You’ve probably got a concussion.” Kirk. “Shouldn’t move.”

“Y sh’d ‘o.” McCoy’s mouth grappled with the words, never quite grasping them.

Kirk’s foot slid from his back. McCoy’s emergency med kid landed with easy reach on the floor beside him. Kirk followed it, leaning down into McCoy’s line of sight. “You can give yourself something for the pain.”

McCoy watched and concentrated on breathing for several seconds, but Kirk only stayed where he was, hands on knees, bend over McCoy in apparent concern. McCoy sat up stiffly. He took his time pulling the correct compound from the kit. He sat looking down at the bottle cradled in his palm, and thought about loading a lethal dose to save himself whatever horrors Kirk had planned. But killing himself would label him a coward and a traitor to the Empire, and he couldn’t burden his daughter with that shame. He could endure a few hours until Kirk became bored and killed him. Hours, or days. Kirk could be creative in his viciousness, and he was always tenacious. Days.

Kirk put a hand on McCoy’s wrist. “I’m not going to kill you,” he said, straight-faced. McCoy saw no bluff in Kirk’s eyes, but he couldn’t tell if Kirk’s face was closed to him in ways it hadn’t been yesterday.

McCoy nodded, though moving his head was agony. Kirk released his hold.

McCoy loaded the proper dose of painkiller, and no more. He injected it into his neck, and relief rushed through his veins, closing off the worst of the agony.

Kirk sat back on his heels, just watching. McCoy wasn’t eager to take his eyes off Kirk, but after a tense staring contest that lasted the space of a few minutes, McCoy came to the conclusion that seeing an attack coming wouldn’t actually provide an advantage. He tore his eyes away from Kirk to rummage through the med kit, and came out with a battered medical scanner.

“You don’t have any life-threatening injuries,” Kirk said mildly.

“Did you get a medical license while I was out?” McCoy snapped.

Kirk rocked back on his heels, almost playfully. “No.”

“Then I’ll be the judge of that.” McCoy turned the scanner on himself, craning his neck at an awkward angle to see the readout.

“If you were dying you wouldn’t be back-talking me.”

“You’re wrong. I would. Until my very last breath.” McCoy looked up at Kirk. They both stilled, reading one another silently for a long minute. This time, Kirk broke first.

“I know, Bones.” Kirk leaned forward to gently pry the scanner out of McCoy’s hand. He grabbed that and the med kit, stood, and dumped his burden on the desk before turning back to McCoy. “Actually, you’re lucky I have a thing for inflicting long, painful deaths on traitors.”

“Am I?” McCoy was able to take stock of his surroundings now that his head had stopped pounding so viciously. He didn’t see any obvious implements of torture, but Kirk had always been creative with his tools.

“I did some research while you were lazing around.” Kirk leaned back against the desk, casual-like, and for a moment McCoy saw Pike in a similarly lazy, arrogant stance, delivering the ultimatum that had brought McCoy here. “Don’t talk, just answer yes or no.”

“Jim--.”

“Bones.” Kirk picked up something—his knife, his father’s knife that he brought out for special occasions—from the desk and ran his thumb lovingly down the flat edge. “Did you hear what I said?”

“Yes.” McCoy’s glance stuck to the shiny point of the knife. He'd seen Kirk make men scream with that knife without shedding enough blood to stain his shirtsleeves.

“Good. You’ve been trying to keep me occupied, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Specifically, you’ve been trying to keep me from fucking other people.”

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t get this idea on your own.”

McCoy hesitated fractionally, but realized that Kirk hated asking questions to which he didn’t know the answer. Silence would only make Kirk more suspicious. “No,” he said.

“Someone gave you a compelling reason to keep my dick your exclusive property.”

“Jim, I didn’t--.”

With a quick flick, the blade sat firmly in Kirk’s hand, ready to strike.

McCoy let his protest fade away, and instead said, “Yes.”

“And this someone has been doling out punishment when you fail.” Kirk tapped the blade against his lips.

“Yes.”

“This started—when? Right after that thing with Tanill’s daughter?”

“Yes.”

Kirk strolled forward. “You went to someone for help.”

“Yes.”

“After I specifically told you not to.”

“Yes.”

“You’re an idiot, Bones.”

“Yes,” McCoy agreed. Idiot, idiot, idiot to put himself and Kirk in Pike’s hands. If Kirk was going to kill him, he needed to at least let him know what game Pike was playing. “You should know--.”

“You shouldn’t have made a deal with Pike. That old bastard will bleed you dry and wring out your corpse if you give him half a chance.”

Though he should have been past being impressed by Kirk’s genius, McCoy wasn’t. He raised an eyebrow.

“You looked up Pike’s address on your padd.” Kirk gestured to the device he’d absconded with after McCoy had destroyed his old one. “You need to remember to purge your data history regularly.”

“Thanks for the tip.”

“Anyway, your choice was obvious. You don’t know anyone else you might have gone to for help.”

“Pike’s got a vested interest in your survival.”

“Yes. Which is why he wouldn’t have let Tanill ship me off.” Kirk started flipping the knife open and closed again, and McCoy began to wonder if the movement wasn’t a threat after all, but a nervous tic. “And just so you know, he wouldn’t have let you be thrown to the wolves if I had gotten shipped off. He’d have taken you on himself before he let that happen. He’s always had a hard-on for you. You sacrificed yourself for something he would have done anyway. That’s really crappy tactics.”

“I’m a doctor, not a damn strategist!”

“I told you not to interfere.” Kirk charged forward to loom over McCoy, knife clenched tightly in his fist. “I had it under control!”

“How the hell was I supposed to know that?” McCoy demanded. “You’d grin and say everything was fine if the academy was crumbling around your ears while you were infected with Pretorian rotting disease and a horde of angry Romulans was howling for your blood. I don’t know all your plans and counter-plans, but if my life depends on you staying in one piece, I’m going to damn well take matters into my own hands when it looks like you might be killed!”

“Hm.” Kirk turned and retreated. His knife hand dropped slowly, until he placed the weapon flat on top of the desk. “That’s an excellent point, Bones.”

“What is?”

“You’re not useless.”

McCoy blinked at Kirk as his gut churned through anger, then hysteria, then anger again before settling on incredulous amusement. “Not…?” Tired laughter tumbled out of him, and he slumped back to lean against the bed. He felt profoundly grateful for the drugs that were numbing his head, but apparently they weren’t doing much for his sense of preservation. Just when Kirk might have been considering a mercifully quick death, McCoy had gone and gotten Kirk thinking about his market value as a bargaining chip. “Thanks for the endorsement.”

Kirk’s smile crept back, genuine this time. “Can you stand?”

“I think so.”

Kirk extended a hand. McCoy gripped his arm and, with Kirk to anchor him, managed to get to his feet. The wave of throbbing in his head had subsided, and he felt steady enough to make a run for it. He could probably make Kirk have to kill him, if the need arose.

“Get cleaned up.” Kirk pushed him gently toward the bathroom. “We’re going out.”

“Where are we going?”

“To see Pike.”  
\--

McCoy wasn’t sure what to make of the fact that Kirk knew the security code to Pike’s house. If he had to venture a guess, he’d say that Pike knew Kirk had it, but hadn’t given it to him. As always, Kirk had a habit of taking more than was offered him.

The lights flicked on in the front room as they entered. McCoy forced himself not to think about why Kirk might have brought him here. Usually his mind sorted through Kirk’s possible actions automatically, a differential diagnosis of sin, so that he could plan a defense, or at least prepare for damage control. Tonight, though, he suspected that anything he could imagine would be kinder than the truth, and he’d rather not be disappointed.

Only a few moments after they arrived, Pike wandered in the room with a drink in his hand looking disappointingly unsurprised. “Have a seat, boys,” he said with a curt nod. “I’ll be with you in a minute.” He disappeared into the hallway. McCoy peered after him, wondering if the nonchalance boded well or ill before deciding that he was better off worrying about Kirk.

Kirk, for his part, seemed unfazed by Pike’s indifference. He strode over to the liquor cabinet, poured two drinks, and handed one to McCoy before throwing himself in an artful sprawl on the sofa with the bottle in hand.

“Jim.” McCoy stared at the drink in his hand as if he could divine Kirk’s plan from the shifting patterns of light dancing through the bourbon. “What do you want me to--.”

“Nothing.” Kirk turned his head sharply to McCoy. “You’ve done enough.”

McCoy nodded stiffly. He perched on the far end of the sofa. He thought briefly about trying to stay sober, but decided that sobriety would be no defense against the combined wills of Kirk and Pike, so he may as well spend the ordeal in an unfeeling haze. He slammed back his drink and held the empty glass out to Kirk.

Kirk’s eyebrows went up, but he reached over and poured McCoy a refill.

McCoy drank that down, too, and held his glass out again.

“You should slow down, Bones,” Kirk said, but he poured. “I have a feeling you might need to participate later.”

“Participate?” McCoy’s third drink suddenly tasted like blood as his mind raced through the injuries he’d treated on victims of Imperial torture—some inflicted by Kirk himself.

“Yeah.” Kirk took a sip of his drink and frowned at McCoy. “Just don’t embarrass me by being too drunk to do your job.”

McCoy swallowed the last of the liquor and extended his glass again.

Kirk cradled the bottle against his chest. “This is Pike’s best bourbon,” he said. “I’m not wasting it on self pity.”

“Fine.” It took McCoy two tries to stumble to his feet, but when he finally made it upright, he swayed over to Pike’s cabinet. He picked out his own damn bottle—presumably Pike’s second-best bourbon. He poured his glass three-quarters full, and carried it and the bottle over to the couch, where he flopped down next to Kirk.

“You know,” Kirk said, “My doctor always says I shouldn’t drink when I have a concussion.”

McCoy clutched his glass and the bottle hard. He couldn’t look at Kirk. “Jim, will you do me a favor?”

“What?”

“If you’re going to kill me tonight, will you do it yourself?”

“What?”

“I deserve that much, I think.” McCoy closed his eyes. In the darkness flickered a thousand images of Kirk’s dangerous smile. He opened his eyes quickly, but Kirk’s smile was nowhere in evidence. McCoy went on. “I don’t want Pike to be the last thing I see.”

Kirk stared at him so long that McCoy thought he may actually be considering the request. Instead, he said, “You really are a horrible negotiator.”

“Fine. Tell me the right way to ask.”

“There isn’t one. I’m not giving you that.” Kirk settled back against the sofa and sipped his drink. “You should know by now that I don’t believe in mercy killings.”

McCoy knew. Hell, he’d helped keep Kirk’s victims alive, even if he’d done his part to mitigate their suffering. No one was likely to mix a pain-killer into an adrenaline shot for him, though. “Jim--.”

“I see you’ve made yourselves at home.” Pike stood in the doorway. Though he was out of uniform, he still looked every inch a commander. He wore dark pants, a form-fitting black shirt, and an undone tie, as if he’d been getting ready to go out for the evening. “You could have at least told me you weren’t using that ticket. Someone else might have liked to go.”

“You didn’t want me to use the ticket in the first place,” Kirk said. “Drink?”

“That had better not be the Hirsch Reserve.”

Kirk swirled his drink around in his glass before taking a sip. He let out a contented sigh. “It is.”

“Then pour me some, put it back in the cabinet, and never touch it again. You mouth may be pretty, but it doesn’t rate alcohol that expensive.”

“Apparently my mouth’s good enough to drink you down.” Kirk’s smile was all teeth. “Sir.”

McCoy clutched his bottle and carefully looked nowhere but at his own glass. The dim light turned the rich gold bourbon dark, almost red.

“Alright, Jimmy. Give me a glass, and pour yourself another.” Pike settled himself on a chair opposite their sofa, and took his drink from Kirk. “What makes you think I didn’t want you to use that ticket?”

“You knew I’d figure it out.”

“Eventually. Honestly, I didn’t expect it to take this long. Your boy’s a better liar than you give him credit for.” Pike raised his glass in McCoy’s direction.

“I admit I may have underestimated him.” Kirk raised his glass as well, and looked at McCoy until he returned the salute and drank with them. “He can be a valuable…asset. As I’m sure you’ve experienced.”

McCoy felt vaguely queasy, somewhere in the distance where his body still existed. He set down his bottle on the table next to him and clutched his glass with both hands.

“Relax,” Pike said. “I’ve barely touched him. We’ve just had a little fun together, isn’t that right, doctor?”

McCoy knew better than to get in the way of a pissing contest between these two. Instead of answering, he downed the rest of his drink and set the glass aside.

“As I recall, your idea of fun is pretty broad,” Kirk said. “And not the kind of thing you do with another man’s property.”

“If you don’t take care to secure your toys, someone will take them away from you. You’ll have to learn that lesson if you want to captain a ship someday.”

“Fine.” Kirk surged to his feet. He grabbed McCoy by the back of his shirt and shoved him to the floor at Pike’s feet. McCoy couldn’t catch himself with alcohol-slowed reflexes, and he landed hard on his side. “Take him,” Kirk said. “Use him however you want, and get it out of your system. I’ll watch. That’s what you want, isn’t it? My _attention_?”

“That’s part of it,” Pike said placidly. He didn’t even look at McCoy’s prone form. “You think too little of people. It’s a weakness. If I wanted to fuck your little doctor, I’d have done it. I want something else.”

“And I want you to quit interfering with our private lives.”

“You’ll need to give me something in return.”

Kirk’s eyes narrowed, and he resumed his seat, morphing into a calculated negotiator. “Name your terms.”

“I’ll give you a choice.” Pike settled back into his chair, as secure as the Emperor on his throne. “I’m having a little soiree next week with five Imperial admirals. You can join us, meet some of the top brass, and make sure they know your name. All you have to do is bring McCoy along to provide hospitality for us all.”

Kirk’s careful non-reaction sent McCoy’s mind spinning off in panicked circles. Kirk had never shared him: one manifestation of his enormous ego for which McCoy had always been deeply grateful. For a chance at face time with admirals, though, Kirk would probably sacrifice his right arm, never mind McCoy’s virtue.

“You said I had a choice,” Kirk pointed out. “What’s my other option?”

“Let him fuck you while I watch. Right here, right now.”

McCoy felt a strange calm spread through him. At least Pike hadn’t proposed some even worse scenario. And McCoy would have a week to steel himself for the coming ordeal.

“Fine,” Kirk said. “We’ll take option number two.”

“What?” McCoy croaked.

The triumphant smile that flashed on Pike’s face had a nasty edge to it. “Good.”

McCoy stared, frozen, while Kirk stood up and began to efficiently divest himself of his uniform. Kirk couldn’t really be accepting this offer. He’d come here to turn McCoy’s betrayal to his advantage, not to give up something else to Pike. McCoy’s bourbon-soaked brain couldn’t puzzle through Kirk’s strategy.

“Bones,” Kirk snapped. He had stripped from the waist up, and was kicking off his boots. “Get up. Clothes off.”

McCoy stumbled to his feet. His balance played tricks on him, sending the living room swirling around him. Pike caught his arm in a firm grip.

"Careful. Jim, he's not sober enough for this."

"I am," McCoy snapped at the same time as Kirk, from behind him, said, "He is."

Pike looked appraisingly at McCoy. "Fine. But you won't be going easy on him. I expect you to fuck him as hard as he's ever fucked you. Understand?"

"Sir," McCoy said, with a sudden clarity that surprised even him. "I'm training to be an Imperial officer. I know how to do my duty." He turned around to face Kirk, and was greeted with Kirk wearing only a delighted smile.

Kirk grabbed McCoy by his uniform shirt and pulled him forward, close enough that he could start dragging off his clothes. He dealt with troublesome buttons and latches too complex for McCoy's current state of intoxication. Though McCoy could feel Pike's eyes on them, he didn't turn to look. He focused all his attention on Kirk. He'd seen him naked often, but this seemed different, somehow, knowing that he would have a chance to do what he wanted with Kirk, with every inch of that beautiful body. His cock stirred at the barrage of images churning through his still-reeling brain: Kirk’s hands touching him instead of Pike’s, Kirk’s mouth on him, Kirk’s skin sliding against his, Kirk’s blue eyes open and hungry. McCoy’s arousal seemed to burn through his intoxication, making the scene before him clearer and more real with each piece of clothing Kirk pulled off him.

“Easy now,” Kirk said quietly, once all their clothes had been discarded. He dragged McCoy down to the floor with him, and they landed in something of a tangled heap. McCoy started to roll onto his back, planning to let Kirk take charge, but Pike’s voice stopped him.

"Doctor, it’s your turn to be on top. On your back, Jimmy.”

Kirk paused for a moment from his position straddling McCoy, then he nodded sharply. He settled on his back, angled to give Pike a clear view of the action. McCoy hesitated for a moment as he realized he was about to do what his instincts had been screaming at him not to: get in the middle of a battle between Kirk and Pike. If he didn’t do this, Pike would demand some other, probably horrific, compensation. If he did do this, Kirk would surely dispose of him afterwards. McCoy couldn’t hope to participate in something like this and keep the whatever-it-was between him and Kirk intact.

McCoy sat, awkwardly frozen halfway toward sitting up. He couldn’t assist Pike in punishing Kirk this way. He’d rather face the torture he thought he’d come here for; that, at least, would only scar his body.

“Bones. Come on. I know you’re not useless, so prove it.”

McCoy looked sharply at Kirk, who met his gaze with a confident, open smirk. And, with a sudden memory of his grandfather’s story about a rabbit and a briar patch, McCoy got it.

This is what Kirk had come here to do. Kirk hadn’t believed that McCoy had betrayed him. The man was a damn genius. He’d _understood,_ and he’d made a plan to win back what was his. Now here he was, taking his own turn at human sacrifice to even out the scale. He wasn’t selling McCoy out to Pike; he was buying him back.

“Doctor,” Pike prompted.

McCoy made himself move. He knelt between Kirk’s open legs, careful not to overbalance. He dragged a hand down Kirk’s body, shoulder to thigh, more to ground himself than anything. The room still tilted precariously around him, but he’d already fallen so far he didn’t see much danger in tumbling further tonight.

He slid the back of his fingers down the length of Kirk’s shaft, then closed a hand around Kirk’s sack. Kirk just bent his knees and planted his feet on the floor to give McCoy better access. McCoy rubbed his thumb over Kirk’s balls and breathed in the smell of arousal mixed with the heady scent of power as he held Kirk still beneath him with only that touch.

McCoy rubbed his fingers lower, across the perineum to push against Kirk’s tight hole. Kirk tensed involuntarily when McCoy’s fingers found his entrance. Kirk’s face remained neutral, and he seemed to be trying not to react, but his muscles clenched, even down his thighs; he probably hadn’t done this in a while. McCoy backed off, rubbing around his hole, but Kirk didn’t react further. Instead, Kirk tucked his hands behind his head as if he were laying out in the California sunshine.

Pike let out an amused grumble of a laugh. “I said fuck him, cadet, not give him a massage.”

McCoy kept his eyes on Kirk, who nodded almost imperceptibly.

"Lube," McCoy said.

Pike laughed. "He doesn't need it."

McCoy turned around to face Pike, and said in a perfectly reasonable tone, "I'm the only medical professional in this room, and I'm the one doing the fucking. Lube."

Pike’s expression changed subtly: just a crease around his eyes and slight quirk in his lip, but McCoy knew he’d earned some sort of points. Pike said, "In the cabinet. To the right."

McCoy got up, swayed over to where Pike had pointed, and snatched the discreet jar off the shelf. He managed to lower himself down to the floor in a controlled half-fall. He batted at Kirk's thighs to make him spread his legs wider, and heard Pike chuckle behind him. He dipped two fingers in the jar and held them up to his nose. He was something of an expert on slick substances, and this one seemed entirely harmless. He darted out a tongue, and decided the stuff was plenty greasy, but not foul enough to have some kind of harmful hidden properties. Only then did he coat two fingers and rub them against Kirk's hole.

"Get on with it, McCoy," Pike said.

"You want me to do this, I do it my way, sir,” he snapped over his shoulder. He looked at Kirk. “Jim?"

"Fingers," Kirk said, strangely breathless.

McCoy slid his fingers into Kirk. His world had been so focused on Kirk's pleasure lately that McCoy had forgotten he liked anything else. The clench of Kirk's muscles around his fingers had McCoy's cock throbbing. Kirk's eyes were open, sharp blue focused right on McCoy's face. His lips parted slightly, gulping in air. When McCoy pushed his fingers in further and crooked them forward, Kirk's eyes drifted closed, and his whole body, shoulders to toes, tensed.

"Good," Kirk said. "Good boy. Go on, I can take more."

McCoy pulled his fingers out, re-coated them with lube, and returned to breach Kirk with three fingers. "That's it," McCoy said. He dragged his fingers in and out, twisting his wrist as he did so. The sight of his wide fingers disappearing into the tight ring of Kirk’s ass sent a swell of arousal flooding through McCoy’s blood. He pressed his fingers over Kirk's prostate, sending a full-body tremor through Kirk. “How’s that feel?”

“Gunhgh,” Kirk grunted.

Kirk knew how to give pleasure, of course, but he didn’t always bother making an effort unless he was trying to prove a point. He liked to see McCoy writhing on the knife’s edge of pain and desire, losing control despite his best efforts not to give in. McCoy, however, preferred honey to vinegar. He slid his fingers slowly in and out of Kirk, dragging each time over the spot that made Kirk’s muscles tremble with the effort of holding back his response. Kirk’s cock strained against his belly, streaking his skin with slick pre-come as McCoy worked his fingers further in.

“He’s ready,” Pike said, his voice rough and lower than usual.

“Well I’m not ready.” McCoy turned around to see Pike palming the bulge in the front of his pants. “You want to do this yourself?”

“Maybe I do,” Pike said.

McCoy’s mouth curled into a snarl, and he leaned over Kirk like an animal defending its prey.

“Bones.” Kirk reached up to grab McCoy’s chin, and pulled him down to meet his eyes. “Come on. Fuck me.”

“Yes.” McCoy pulled his fingers out of Kirk and drew one of Kirk’s legs up over his shoulder, spreading him wide. He dragged his slick hand over his cock, and guided it to Kirk’s ass. A smooth press forward, and he was sliding in. He had never seen Kirk’s face look like this: utterly unguarded, with all his pretenses stripped away.

McCoy pushed in slowly. Kirk’s body took him in inch by glorious inch until they were fused together. McCoy had to stop and let himself adjust to the feeling, or he knew he’d finish too soon and ruin Kirk’s plan. Even the steady motion of Kirk’s breathing sent sparks of dangerous pleasure coursing through him. He should have listened to Kirk and not taken those last two drinks. Maybe the last three.

After a moment, Kirk pressed his hips up impatiently. “Now, like the man said. Hard. Don’t hold back.”

“I won’t,” McCoy said. “Not with you.” Let Pike think McCoy intended revenge; Kirk would know better.

McCoy drew his hips back slowly, and then he slammed back into Kirk, drawing a startled gasp out of him. He heard an appreciative grunt from Pike. McCoy pulled out slowly, until just the fat head of his dick was being squeezed by Kirk’s tight muscles, and thrust in again. Kirk’s head went back, leaving the long, vulnerable line of his throat open. McCoy resisted the urge to kiss or bite, and concentrated instead on giving Kirk the kind of merciless pounding he himself had enjoyed so often.

“Harder,” Pike demanded. His voice was definitely tight now, as if holding back his own noises of pleasure. “Make him scream.”

McCoy pushed Kirk’s legs up and back for leverage and leaned into his thrusts, hammering roughly into Kirk. The new angle drove a hard, high sound out of Kirk. His hand immediately came up to grip McCoy’s arm where it was braced against the floor. His fingers dug into McCoy’s bicep. Kirk’s other hand jerked his own cock desperately, and his mouth hung open in beautifully honest pleasure.

“Jim,” McCoy panted.

“Yeah.” Kirk nodded sharply. “Come for me.”

McCoy slammed forward again, burying himself fully inside Kirk. He felt dangerous, like a warp core about to breach, and warmer than the fires of a nonexistent hell. Kirk’s body clenching around him sent him screaming out his release. His arms gave out, and he fell onto his elbows, pressed close to Kirk.

“Your hand,” Kirk said, an urgent moan.

McCoy closed his grip over Kirk’s where his cock jutted between their sweat-soaked bodies. He knew just the way Kirk liked it, maybe knew Kirk’s body better than he did. Their tangled fingers sped over the length of his shaft, with McCoy pressing his thumb hard against the underside of the head and Kirk twisting his hand around the base. Together they pushed Kirk over the edge. His hot come spurted over their hands, covering the lot until McCoy could barely tell where his body ended and Kirk’s began.

McCoy slumped again, this time against Kirk’s side, panting. He could feel Kirk’s lungs work as he got his breathing under control. Then Kirk’s deep, slow laugh shook them both. “Not what you were expecting, Captain?”

McCoy craned his neck back to see Pike regarding them through narrowed eyes. He was surprised how unselfconscious he felt being naked, filthy with semen and sweat on the floor of Pike’s living room. Kirk’s bravado seemed to create a shield that covered both of them.

“Not exactly what I was expecting, no,” Pike said.

“You were hoping Bones would show me my place? I know my place, Captain. And he does, too.” Kirk sat up, narrowing his eyes at Pike. “Ah. Ah, I see.”

“Do you?” Pike asked with a raised eyebrow and a partial lifting of his upper lip to bare his teeth. “What exactly do you see, cadet?”

“You Machiavellian bastard.” Kirk sounded almost impressed. “You have a funny way of sending a message.”

“I got bored of waiting,” Pike said, lazily dragging his fist up and down the front of his pants. “The Enterprise flies in less than a year. It’s time you put away childish things.”

“Like fucking around?”

“Like ignoring your best ally,” Pike said. “Loyalty is precious in the Empire. If you can’t recognize it, you’ll never be able to use it.”

McCoy looked between Kirk and Pike, not certain he was following the logic. The floaty feeling of a significant alcoholic buzz combined with his post-orgasmic haze probably wasn’t helping his powers of reasoning, but he felt fairly certain he didn’t know what in the hell Pike was talking about. However, he did recognize Kirk’s predatory glance when he saw it. He’d had it directed at him often enough.

“Well, Captain,” Kirk said, and he sounded almost sincere. “We might owe you a thank-you. Bones.”

Kirk jerked his chin toward Pike, and McCoy nodded in return. They both turned toward the chair where Pike sat, and began to crawl toward him in tandem.

Pike sucked in a breath, but he didn’t protest when Kirk brushed his face against the bulge in Pike’s pants.

“Sir?” Kirk asked.

McCoy didn’t think anyone could resist Kirk’s eyes and the promise of his mouth, and Pike bore out that assumption. He tugged at the front of his pants and lifted his hips to push them and his underwear out of the way.

Kirk immediately darted in to lick and suck at Pike’s erection. McCoy had seen Kirk in action before, but never from this close, and never with quite this amount of calculated _delight_. He looked as if getting Pike to allow this had been a tremendous feat. When Pike caught a low groan between his teeth and reached his hand down to pet the back of Kirk’s head, McCoy began to understand why Kirk wanted to drive his victory home this way.

Kirk, with his mouth full of Pike’s cock, glanced back at McCoy. He took his cue quickly, crawling forward to slide his fingers between Pike’s legs and rub the base of his erection teasingly. After a moment, Kirk relinquished his hold and nudged Pike’s cock in McCoy’s direction.

McCoy sucked the crown into his mouth. Kirk’s insistent licks along the shaft grazed against McCoy’s lips, almost a deliberate caress. Pike’s hand came down to grip McCoy’s shoulder hard. McCoy could see Pike’s muscles clench underneath his clothing as he struggled to hold in the noises that would betray how this treatment affected him.

McCoy’s eyes drifted to Kirk, who grazed his teeth carefully against the underside of Pike’s cock and gave McCoy a deliberate wink. They’d cooperated before, of course, but this seemed different, both of them working against a common enemy in this battle to undo Pike. Strange how easy it seemed to work alongside Kirk after all this time at his mercy. If he and Kirk united against the whole of the Empire, McCoy could almost believe they would win out.

McCoy tongued hard at Pike’s slit. A strangled hiss escaped past Pike’s teeth. Kirk’s eyes lit as he saw victory draw near. Kirk shouldered McCoy out of the way, opened his mouth, and took Pike’s cock all the way to the root. McCoy slid his fingers into the fray, sliding over Pike’s balls and down to press against his hole.

A shout poured out of Pike like blood from a wound. Pike’s hands clamped down on each of their shoulders, holding them in place while he emptied himself down Kirk’s throat. Kirk swallowed smoothly, then pulled off with a last playful lick.

Kirk turned, grabbed McCoy by the back of the neck, and pulled him into a sharp kiss that was full of teeth and tongue. He continued claiming McCoy’s mouth until Pike had righted his clothes and stood up.

“Kirk,” Pike said. No longer “Jimmy,” McCoy noticed.

Kirk dragged himself away from McCoy’s mouth to look up at Pike innocently. “We done here?”

“I’m done.” He snatched his bottle of Hirsch Reserve off the table and headed for the darkened hallway.

Kirk abandoned McCoy to jump to his feet and square off against Pike. “Captain, a word before we go?”

Pike glanced over at McCoy, then back to Kirk. “Granted,” he said.

Kirk held out a hand to help McCoy to his feet, then pushed him gently in the direction of his clothes. “Bones, wait outside.”

McCoy’s gaze darted to Pike, whose grey eyes gave nothing away. “Jim--.”

“Wait outside. Now.”  
\--

McCoy found himself hastily dressed and out in the damp air before Pike and Kirk exchanged another word. Now that his temporary sex-and-fear-fueled adrenaline high had worn off, he felt woozy again, head swimming with booze. He stood in the street in front of Pike’s townhouse, staring up at the sky. On a rare clear night like this, the stars seemed spread out like an invitation. Perhaps McCoy’s terror had all been spent during the evening’s events, but right now he couldn’t bring himself to dread a future up there among all that light.

“Bones.” Kirk’s fingers folded around his left arm and pulled his attention back down to Earth. “You okay?”

“Just dandy.” McCoy jerked his chin toward Pike’s darkened house. “What was that all about?”

“Nothing.” Kirk steered them to the sidewalk in the direction of campus, never letting go of McCoy’s arm. “It’s fine.”

“You know something I don’t about why the hell he seemed so smug.”

“It’s fine. Pike and I understand each other.” Kirk looked over at McCoy, reading his skepticism easily. “Relax, Bones.”

“You didn’t make some horrible deal with him?”

“No.” Kirk rolled his eyes. “Because I have actually been trained in tactics, so I wouldn’t make an impossible promise I knew I could never keep.”

“Oh, is that what they teach you in those classes?”

Kirk stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, and his unrelenting grip ensured that McCoy stopped, too. “I need a promise from you that you won’t do stupid things like that,” Kirk said.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” McCoy grumbled.

Kirk tightened his grip on McCoy’s arm and swung him against a tree McCoy hadn’t even noticed. Kirk pressed up against him, hard and lean. “I’m not letting you go. No one else can have you. Not Pike, not a whole Fleet’s worth of Admirals. No one touches what’s mine.”

“You don’t own me,” McCoy snapped. Perhaps that was the bourbon still talking, but he wasn’t about to go back to being slammed against the nearest surface at a whim, or made to heel like a dog, not after what he’d been through in the past weeks.

“I own you as much as you own me,” Kirk snapped back.

That penetrated the alcohol fog. McCoy turned that answer around in his mind, and found it one he could live with. “Fine.” He wrapped his hands around Kirk’s wrist and tugged his grip loose.

Kirk released his hold and dropped his hand, but McCoy kept his grip on Kirk’s wrist. They walked like that for a few blocks.

“I’m still not your toy,” McCoy said when they’d reached a dark stretch of sidewalk where the overhanging trees hid the cold light of the stars.

Kirk’s eyes cut through the empty space between them, brilliant blue despite the dark. “That doesn’t mean I can’t play with you sometimes.”

“You can try, I suppose.” McCoy attempted to sound firm, but he’d expended so much effort recently in putting up a tough front that his heart wasn’t in it.

“I never get tired of trying.”

“Me neither.”

“I know,” Kirk said softly. “Until your very last breath.”

“Until then,” McCoy said.

Kirk slid his wrist out of McCoy’s grip so that he could twine their fingers together, and they walked on.

**Author's Note:**

> Additional content advisory: This fic includes humiliation, public sex, light bondage, use of toys, threat of bloodplay, BDSM, fisting, off-label use of controlled substances, sensory deprivation, rough sex, physical violence (including violence between partners), description of injuries and a few medical procedures, and very brief contemplation of suicide.


End file.
